Rise of Darkrai a pokeshipping story
by FunFX2012
Summary: in a different dimension, two deities are locked in vicious combat, as ash and friends reach Alamos town they run into new Pokemon... and old friends and a battle that could mean the end of our heroes and our very dimension. only ash and his friends along with the help of a mysterious darkrai can thwart this danger and save the day. an AAML and remake of the movie rise of darkrai
1. prologue: Godey's diary

**Rise of Darkrai: a pokèshipping story**

**(Authors note: this is my first fan fiction and I am not a very experienced writer but I always try my best, this is a remake of the "Rise of Darkrai" movie showing what would happen if Misty had returned. An AAML please review)**

Prologue: Godey's diary

Alamos town, the Sinnoh region.

A man named Tonio is reading through a diary owned by a man named Godey from a century ago, it reads this:

"Two entities that never should have met, cross paths in the space-time rift. This ill-fated meeting has brought forth their unbridled wrath enveloping the city, and as a result: all has collapsed. what could be the true meaning of this nightmare?"

"Wow, Godey's diary" Tonio says thinking about the diary entry

%%%%%

Meanwhile in an alternate dimension unbeknownst to the rest of the world, two Pokémon filled with rage confronted eachother.

A large, pink and white bipedal creature with small wings known as _Palkia,_ the Pokémon that governs space.

Another large creature, a blue and grey four-legged beast with an elongated skull and gears on its back known as _Dialga, _the Pokémon that governs time.

They both start charging their signature moves.

Palkia's pink gems on its shoulders shined brightly and its eyes glowed orange, Dialga's blue gem on its chest shined a bright blue, the gears on its back expanded and its eyes glowed orange, they both fired their attacks.

Palkia threw it's arm forward creating a pink attack that looks like an air slash and Dialga breathed with a roar a multi coloured blast that looks like a hyper beam.

The attacks collided creating a massive explosion that caused dimensional shockwaves and scattered the Unown that roam the dimension the Pokémon are fighting in.

%%%%%

Back in Alamos town the shockwaves affected the town by causing things to start shaking and the hour-glass on Tonio's desk to fall and break.

**Thus begins my fanfic, and yes I know this is pretty much a written version of the prologue of the movie but there is not much else I can add, please review and use constructive criticism bye for now!**

**(update, 25/11/14: I am updating and fixing old errors in my older chapters, I am not dead and I am having trouble writing the latest chapter 'Alamos town Pokémon contest'. If anyone can help me with the chapter that would be appreciated).**


	2. Chapter 1: welcome to Alamos town

**Rise of Darkrai a pokèshipping story**

**(A/N hey guys this is my second chapter hope you guys enjoy and give me help in my writing, this chapter things might get interesting as I continue with the plot, now sit back, read and review)**

**Scene change= *******

Chapter one: Welcome to Alamos town

On the road outside of Alamos town, a group of three Pokemon trainers approached the city, their name's were Ash, Dawn and Brock.

Ash was a 14 year old trainer from Pallet town in the Kanto region on a journey to become a Pokemon master, on his shoulder was his starter pokemon, Pikachu.

Dawn was 13 years old and was from Twinleaf town in Sinnoh, her dream was to become a top co-ordinator like her mother, Johanna.

Brock was an 18 year old from Kanto and was an old friend of Ash's, his dream was to become a Pokemon breeder.

"Hey Brock, do you know how much further it is 'till we get there?" Ash asked impatiently.

"Well... according to the map it should be right over that hill" Brock answered.

And with that ash started rushing towards the hill with Dawn following suite soon after.

"I can't wait to get there, so many new challenges waiting for me I can't wait!" Ash exclaimed excitedly.

"And I need to get ready for my contest, so many dresses such little time" Dawn said equally as excited.

As they kept running Ash noticed something was off.

"hold on" Ash said to make Dawn slow down.

As they stopped they were shocked to notice that there is a large drop off surrounding Alamos town and the only one way to get there is a bridge in the hills on the far side of the town.

"It looks like we ended up on the wrong shore" Brock says sheepishly.

"I'm so exhausted" Dawn said as she let her upper body go limp from exhaustion.

"Me too" Ash agreed as he did the same with Pikachu resting on his head.

"Hey down there, would you like a lift?" a feminine voice from out of nowhere called out.

They all look up to see a woman in a hot air balloon and Brock (big surprise) immediately goes girl crazy over her.

A few moments later they were in the hot air balloon floating towards the town.

"We can't thank you enough for your kindness, so my name dear is brock would you honour us by telling your name" Brock asks excitedly in a girl crazy manner.

"My name is Alice" she responds.

"So it's Alice, from Alamos town!" Brock quickly ducks down and gets a blue book from his back pack, "I can't believe I don't have you written down in my 'little blue book of babes' silly me.. Ah I am such a dummy" he groans as he hangs his head down in shame.

"Well there's only one thing I to do, let me take you out!" as he begged he was poison jabbed by his Croagunk "be...fore Croagunk... takes me out" he exclaims as he collapses on his knees.

Ash and Dawn just smiled sheepishly as they watched their breeder friend's failed attempt at getting a girlfriend.

"So my name is dawn I am entering the Alamos town Pokémon contest" Dawn explains as she ignores the topic of Brock's obsession with women.

"And I'm ash, and this is my partner Pikachu" Ash introduced himself.

"Pikachu" Ash's Pikachu said as he greeted Alice.

"Char!" Alice's Chimchar yelled as it used a Flamethrower to keep the balloon rising.

"Awesome, now we're really moving" Ash exclaimed as they picked up speed.

"What a pretty lake" Dawn added.

"Not as pretty as Alice!" Brock said as he bolted off the ground.

"Whoa your fast" Ash pointed out.

"He's used to it" Dawn explained with a sweat drop.

"Well" Alice began, "I work part time as a hot air balloon tour guide, but I also spend most of my time as a music student" she pulled out a small leaf.

"A leaf whistle" Dawn said as she noticed the instrument.

Alice played a small melody on the leaf whistle which got a flock of Pelipper and a Pidgeotto with a flock of Pidgey behind it to go towards the balloon.

As she finished the Pokémon flew off to the way the balloon was heading.

"See they are showing me which direction the wind is blowing" she explained about what she was doing.

"Alright Chimchar now" she ordered for her Chimchar to do another Flamethrower to keep them going, Pikachu climbed the balloon to get to where Chimchar was and introduced itself.

"Pika Pika" Pikachu greeted.

Chimchar chattered happily in response.

%%%%%

Meanwhile above the group was another balloon shaped like a Carnevine which belonged to the team rocket trio Jessie, James and a talking Meowth.

"Say, this balloon things is really catching on" James pointed out.

"Yeah, like we're going to catch Pikachu" Meowth added.

Suddenly a drifloon floats up in front of the trio and bounces into Jessie's face before floating over the other balloon Pokémon.

"More balloons?" Jessie questioned.

"Three Drifloon and a Drifblim" Meowth explained.

"Aw they're so cute and round" Jessie said in a cheery tone "Say I think they want us to take them for a walk".

She pulled out a bug catcher and attempted to capture the Drifloon.

"Come. To. Jessie!" she exclaimed between swings of the bug catcher.

"Will you please stop playing hard to get!" she yelled as she failed at reaching the Drifloon.

The balloon Pokémon and the Drifblim started to swell up with angry faces in preparation for an attack.

"What did I do?" Jessie asked confused as to what she did.

"Same thing ya always do" Meowth answered nervously.

"Ok now, a little humour will go a long way to stop that swelling" James suggested while giving a nervous smile.

Jessie's wobbuffet appeared out of its pokèball as it often did at inappropriate times, "woba" it said while it saluted.

The drifloon and drifblim unleashed their powerful attacks of fast moving wind.

"They busted us with gust!" Meowth yelled in surprise.

As they were blown into the higher cloud areas they said their signature catchphrase "WE'RE BLASTING OFF AGAIN!" they disappear with a twinkle in the distance.

%%%%%

As the trainers approached the town they saw a building with two large towers on both sides.

"Wow look at those towers" Dawn said in awe.

"They are the space-time towers" Alice answered.

"Here guys listen to this, the brilliant architect Godey designed the space-time towers one hundred years ago" Brock explained.

"And that is where we hold our Pokémon contests Dawn" Alice added.

"Oh wow!" Dawn exclaimed in excitement.

"One hundred years, that's like ten years times…" Ash began.

"Times ten" Dawn answered for ash, confused to why he didn't know basic math.

"Let's see, it explains why they are called space-time, the tower on the right represents time and the one on the left represents space" Brock explained.

"Hey I could have told you that" ash added.

Ash's Pikachu felt something was wrong and looked around, and then massive dimensional shockwaves as of the result of the battle between Dialga and Palkia, the shockwaves shook the balloon around and caused panic in the group.

%%%%% In Tonio's Lab %%%%%

The computer started receiving readings of a disturbance between the space-time dimensions.

"Powerful forces colliding with each other, something big is going on" Tonio said as he left the laboratory running.

The readings slowly stopped, as did the shockwaves.

%%%%% in Alice's balloon %%%%%

"Is everybody ok?" Alice asked in concern.

"Yeah" everybody answers.

"What was that?" Brock asked.

"I suppose it could have been the air currents, but it sure was strange, I'm sorry if anybody got scared. I know what, I could give you the grand tour".

"Deal" Dawn answered excitedly.

"That would be great" Ash said also as excitedly.

"Pika!" Pikachu agreed along with its friends.

**Well there we go chapter 1 complete and also went past 1000 words this chapter which is pretty good considering it took a few days to write oh well expect a chapter by next Sunday (AEST). Next chapter will have some battles and will introduce an old friend, for now I bid you farewell.**

**Please review and feel free to give me help and constructive criticism**

**(update, 25/11/14: I am updating and fixing old errors in my older chapters, I am not dead and I am having trouble writing the latest chapter 'Alamos town Pokémon contest'. If anyone can help me with the chapter that would be appreciated).**


	3. Chapter 2: new town, old friends

**Rise of Darkrai a pokèshipping story**

**Hi guys back again with another chapter for you this is where the action starts to pick up the story and the plot progresses. Be warned I am not that good at writing battle scenes so help me on ways I can make them.**

**(Disclaimer: I do not own Pokémon it is owned by Satoshi Tajiri and 4kids entertainment studios)**

**Scene change: %%%%%**

Chapter 2: New town, Old friends.

On the streets of Alamos town Alice was giving our heroes the grand tour.

Alice stopped by a cotton candy stall and gestured to the group if they wanted any.

They all nodded with smiles on their faces.

%%%%%

As they were walking and eating their cotton candy Ash and pikachu had finished theirs while brock was distracted by Alice, Ash and pikachu finished Brock's one rapidly leaving Dawn in surprise at how fast he ate the cotton candy, Brock then took a bite but got nothing but an empty stick.

Ash and pikachu had big smiles on their faces and started running to get away from brock but he was stopped in his path by a torterra.

"Hey you alright?" the guy who owned the torterra asked, he was a brunette, a few inches taller than ash (ash is 14 and about 5'5), wore a white jacket w/ green shirt, skinny grey pants and a pair of brown sneakers.

"Yeah I am alright, my names Ash and this is my partner pikachu" Ash greeted.

"Pika" pikachu said to the guy's torterra.

"Tor" torterra replied.

"Well, my name's Maury nice to meet you" Maury explains.

Just then the others showed up with smiles on their faces as they noticed the other two people who showed up.

One was a man with very dark blue dreadlocks, he was taller than Maury and wore a blue jacket with a brown collar and white shirt as well as a pair of pants the same colour as his hair.

The other was a woman with ruby red hair and a white blouse with a red button up vestthat cut off at the abdomen she was wearing a pair of black shorts and some red stockings that went up past her knees and started at her black boots. She was about the same height as Maury.

"Hi my name is Kai" the man with blue dreadlocks said with a hand on his chin.

"And my name is Allegra" the ruby haired woman said while throwing a pokèball and catching in repeatedly.

"So, are you up for a battle?" Maury asked.

Our heroes all nodded vigorously, all anxious for a battle.

Maury was up against ash, Kai against dawn and Allegra against Brock.

"Does a one on one sound good to you Ash?" Maury asked.

"Yeah it's good enough for me as long as we get to battle" Ash answered excitedly.

Maury just smiled at his opponent's eagerness as he sent out his torterra.

"Alright pikachu use thunderbolt" Ash ordered to his pikachu.

Pikachu complied and charged a large thunderbolt towards his opponent with a direct hit.

"Good work pikachu" Ash cheered for his partner but noticed that torterra seemed hardly fazed by the attack "huh?" he wondered why it didn't affect torterra.

"Torterra is a part ground type as well as a grass type so your thunderbolt didn't do anything, now use seed bomb torterra!" Maury ordered his torterra.

Torterra opened its mouth to charge up a bright white light then fired explosive pellets of light at pikachu who seemed to be dodging all of them.

"Now pikachu use iron tail!" Ash yelled

Pikachu's tail began to glow white as it spun and hit torterra in the side flipping it on its back.

"No! Torterra get up!" Maury said in a panic cause if torterra didn't get up it would be an easy target.

"Now finish it with a volt tackle!" Ash exclaimed.

"Pika pika pika pika!" the little electric mouse said as it surrounded itself in electricity and charged toward torterra.

Pikachu hit torterra with a direct hit and knocked it out.

"Good job buddy" ash congratulated his friend as pikachu climbed on his shoulder.

"You did great torterra" Maury said as he returned torterra.

"That was a good battle Maury" Ash said.

"Thanks, I needed the practice anyway for the Alamos town Pokémon contest" Maury replied cheerfully.

"Wait, your entering the contest?" Ash asked.

"Yeah, I'm doing this to get my second ribbon, my friends here are also entering" Maury said.

"Dawn is also here for the contest and her second ribbon" ash said.

"Well she better watch out cause I'm not exactly a pushover when it comes to contests, neither are my friends" Maury said with a smirk.

"From what I've seen her do, you might have your work cut out for you" ash said also smirking.

"Well we will see when the contest starts" Maury said as they went over to where Allegra and Brock where battling with their infernape and croagunk.

"Infernape use flamethrower" Allegra ordered the flame Pokémon.

The blast of fire missed croagunk because it had dodged the attack, the fire nearly hit Brock as he jumped out of the way.

"Croagunk use poison jab" Brock told the toxic mouth Pokémon.

Croagunk's hands lit up in a bright purple as it started throwing swings at the flame Pokémon.

"Match it with close combat" Allegra told her infernape.

The two Pokémon were equally matched in hand to hand combat easily dodging each other's attacks, then croagunk got a lucky hit on infernape causing it to hold the injured area in pain.

"Croagunk use brick break to end it" Brock ordered croagunk to go in for the kill.

Croagunk jumped in the air and came down with a hard karate chop to infernape knocking it unconscious.

"Infernape… you did well" she said with a smile as she returns it to its pokèball.

Brock was going to make an advance on her but was poison jabbed before he could have a chance and dragged him away leaving Allegra confused.

Before Dawn and Kai's battle started their Pokémon, piplup and empoleon respectively, engaged in a puff contest as per the species tradition Dawn's piplup leaned back to far and was sent tumbling backwards to Dawn's feet.

Then after getting into position Kai started off the battle ordering empoleon to use ice beam on piplup, piplup was easily able to dodge because of its size.

"Piplup jump up in the air then use whirlpool" Dawn told her piplup.

Piplup complied by jumping high in the air and unleashing a whirlpool generated from its mouth and hurled it towards empoleon.

"Use ice beam to stop it empoleon" Kai ordered the emperor Pokémon.

Empoleon used ice beam to break the whirlpool shattering it causing sparkles to form.

"Use peak and dive towards empoleon" Dawn said to the penguin Pokémon.

"Empoleon counter it with drill peck" Kai said to empoleon.

Both Pokémon flew towards each other at high speeds causing damage to both sides when they collided, when piplup landed it fell struggled to stand up for a few seconds this was not long as Dawn told piplup to spin and use whirlpool, creating a large vortex of water around piplup that causes empoleon to be sucked in and spun around.

The vortex was propelled into the air where it broke leaving empoleon unconscious and piplup unharmed as they fell back towards the ground.

"Empoleon no... Alright, you did good old friend" Kai said as he returned his Pokémon back to its pokèball.

"You did very well against my empoleon, I can't wait to see how you do in the Pokémon contest" Kai congratulated.

"Thanks, but how did you know I was entering the Pokémon contest?" Dawn asked.

"Well those moves seemed like stuff you would do in a Pokémon contest so I just put two and two together" Kai explained.

"Well I guess that does make sense, so I take it you guys are entering too?" Dawn questioned.

"Yeah we are" Maury and Allegra answered simultaneously.

"Well I hope to see you guys again at the contest" Dawn said as she was leaving the group.

"Goodbye" both groups said to each other as our heroes left with Alice.

%%%%%

"Those battling skills are quite impressive, those were some of the best battles I have seen in a while" Alice complimented the group on their success in the battles earlier.

"Thanks" they all replied as they were reaching the front gates of the Alamos town garden, it was a beautiful garden filled with lush vegetation and a large pond filled with schools of lumineon and finneon.

"This has got to be my favourite place in the whole town" Alice said "this whole garden was designed by Godey you know" Alice continued.

"What a beautiful spot, it says the design theme of architect Godey is the brilliant harmony of humans and Pokémon" Brock explained.

As he said that a group of Pokémon showed up to play with the other Pokémon our heroes had with them, in the group was a shinx, luxio, azurill, marill and an azumarill.

"I have been playing in this garden ever since I was a little girl, so everyone here is my friend" Alice said as a group of combee flew past them.

"Cool everyone come on out" Ash said as he pulls out his pokèballs and releases his Pokémon, a turtwig, staravia and an aipom.

"Great idea, come on out" Dawn agreed as she did the same as ash calling out her Pokémon, a buneary, pachurisu and a buizel.

"I'm in too" Brock said as he followed suite calling out his Pokémon, a sudowoodo, his croagunk and a happiny.

The Pokémon ran along ahead past a small, rectangle shaped fountain area, the water types taking the water as a route while the others followed the path or in staravia's case flew over the water.

The humans took the route through the vine encased archway, a wormadam dropped down from the ceiling attached by a piece of string surprising Ash.

"woah" Dawn said in surprise as more wormadam and some burmy's dropped at shot back up in a bungee jump style.

"It must be their way of welcoming us" Brock explained.

Brock's croagunk travelled at its own pace and stopped to look at the group of wormadam and brumy.

The other Pokémon were going across the little pool of water filled with leaf shaped stepping stones that escalated to get to other parts of the garden with shinx in the lead, as happiny was jumping across it fell off the path but was caught by a quagsire that was followed by three wooper.

The group of Pokémon followed shinx to a large playground area, but something else was noticed by pikachu, an eerily familiar scent.

The electric mouse turned and noticed a red headed girl with a short ponytail on the side of her hair, wearing a yellow button vest with a single blue button and collar, a red under-shirt, yellow short shorts and a pair of red and orange shoes with white socks. (Based on her outfit from the master of the mirage Pokémon)

"Pikachupi!" pikachu exclaimed as he ran towards his old friend.

"Huh… Pikachu!" Misty said in shock as to see her old friend's pikachu.

"Hey, pikachu what's going on" ash asked as he ran down the stairs.

"Pikapi" pikachu called out as he jumped on Misty's shoulder.

Ash stopped with a look of surprise as he saw whose shoulder pikachu was on.

"Misty?" Ash exclaimed as he had not seen her since the events with and the mirage Pokémon.

"Hello Ash Long-time no see" she said with a smile, happy to see her old friend again.

**And that's it for this chapter, cliff hangers are evil aren't they. This chapter has gotten about two thousand words, a new personal best. I would like to thank those who have reviewed and given me help and to tell you guys I am starting a new semester of school so uploading new chapters every weekend will seem to be the new schedule.**

**Please review and give constructive criticism.**


	4. Chapter 3: The nightmare begins

**Rise of Darkrai a Pokèshipping story **

**I AM REALLY, REALLY, REALLY SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG! But school started and I had been extremely busy with assignments (five assignments given out in less than two weeks, WTF teachers!). Anyway this chapter will continue on with the story and develop some character a little bit, give some backstory, new characters etc. **

**(Disclaimer: my chances of owning the Pokémon franchise is like the chances of Pokémon existing, NOT A CHANCE)**

**%%%%%= scene change**

_(Insert character name here)'s POV_**= point of view change**

"**Bold"= telepathy **

'_Italics' _**= thoughts**

"_**Speech (speech)"= pokespeak translation**_

Chapter 3: the nightmare begins

_(Ash's POV)_

'_What is misty doing here, she is supposed to be back at the Cerulean Gym in Kanto' _I thought as I stared at my old friend who travelled with me during my travels in the Kanto league, the orange islands and the Johto league.

"Well aren't you going to say hello?" she said jokingly.

"Oh sorry, Hi misty" I replied sheepishly.

"Hey ash what is it? I heard pikachu yelling something" Brock said as he walked down the stairs.

"It's nothing brock, just an old friend" I answered.

"Hello Brock" misty said.

"Misty? What are you doing here?" Brock said in a surprised manner, but also with a smile.

"Well I'll explain in a minute, first I want to show you guys my Pokémon" misty said as she pulled out some pokèballs "come on out!" she exclaimed as her pokèballs were thrown in the air and landed to reveal 4 Pokémon.

"Va, vaporeon" vaporeon greeted.

"Bui bui" buizel said as it put its paws on its sides.

"Mudkip" the little water type said as it smiled.

"Lup, piplup" her shiny piplup said as it looked away shyly.

"You guys run off and play somewhere" misty told her Pokémon and they obeyed.

"Why is your piplup a different colour misty" I asked not knowing why it was coloured differently.

"I believe it is a shiny Pokémon, how did you find it" brock said.

'_Of course how did I not know that, I have a shiny noctowl myself so how did I forget' _I scolded myself for not knowing something simple like that.

"That's right Brock. I found her outside Eterna city being attacked by a group of grass type Pokémon, had I not jumped in to help her I'm not sure what would have happened. After that she followed me all the way to Eterna city. I then asked if she wanted to join me, she was very eager to join me and we have been together ever since" misty explained.

"Wow that is amazing" I said with a bit of nostalgia as I was reminded first day with pikachu and how we defeated the entire flock of spearow.

_(Normal POV)_

"Hey guys what is going on? Why did you guys leave me?" Dawn asked the group as she descended the stairs with Alice.

"Sorry about that dawn we just met an old friend" brock answered sheepishly.

"Hi misty, I see you took the time to check out the garden" Alice said politely .

"Hello Alice, it is a very beautiful place" misty replied.

"Wait, you know misty" ash asked Alice.

"Yes I do I met her a few days ago when she first arrived, she was in the same situation as you guys when we first met, ended up on the wrong shore" Alice answered with a slight laugh.

Misty sweat dropped nervously.

"Well it looks like someone is bad with directions" ash added smugly.

"I'm bad with directions? You did the same thing as me, not to mention all the times we got lost because of you" misty spat back.

"I was ten and I am not bad with directions now!" ash shot back angrily.

"You were bad with directions then and still are now!" misty said now yelling.

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"AM NOT!"

"ARE TOO!"

"Brock what just happened?" dawn asked slightly terrified at how quickly the conversation escalated.

"Get used to it because this happens all the time when those two are together, they barely agree on anything" brock replied in an irritated tone, remembering all the times misty and ash had argued in the past.

Brock had gotten between the pair and stopped the argument.

"Alright break it up, you guys are back together not even five minutes and are already arguing" brock said in a stern voice.

The couple stood there in silence.

"I'm sorry Ash, I didn't mean it" misty finally apologized.

"I'm sorry too mist, I shouldn't have started it" ash apologized in the same tone.

Dawn just stood there in disbelief '_what just happened? They started friendly, then got angry and are now friends again, I don't get it" _she thought trying to understand the two.

"I guess we should check on the other Pokémon" Alice said trying to distract the others from the silence. '_They certainly are a strange pair'_ she thought to herself.

"Right" they all agreed and followed Alice to a clearing by the water that had a little park in it where all the Pokémon were playing.

'_I don't know why but I have a feeling I have seen her before' _dawn thought as she walked with the group.

%%%%%

The group stopped walking when they got to a stone railing over-looking the playground in which the Pokémon played in.

"So misty what is the reason you are in the sinnoh region anyway" brock asked eager to the truth on why his friend was doing so far away from cerulean city.

"well brock you know how my dream is to become a water Pokémon master right?" misty said as the others nodded "well I am going through each of the region catching and studying as many water types as I can" she continued.

"But who is running the gym?" ash questioned.

"My sisters are running the gym for me" she answered simply.

"But aren't your sisters bad at battling and give away gym badges?" ash asked.

"Don't remind me, they still aren't good at battling but I have been training them, even though daisy is the only one who seems to do anything" she explained.

"You're a gym leader?" dawn questioned.

"Yeah, I am the Cerulean city gym leader in the Kanto region, I specialise in water types" Misty answered.

"Wow that is amazing" dawn said in amazement.

"I didn't know you were a gym leader, it is an honour to meet a gym leader" Alice said politely.

"Don't mention it" misty replied with a smile.

%%%%%%

(**Poke speech translation activated)**

Down in the playground Pikachu was playing with the other Pokémon when he saw a familiar face.

"**Pika? (Pysduck?)" **Pikachu said to the platypus-like Pokémon.

"**Psy? (Huh?)" **It replied simply, holding its head in pain.

"**Pikachu (figures he doesn't remember me)" **Pikachu said in an annoyed tone.

"**azu azu! (uncle Pikachu!)" **A little azurill yelled as it tackled him in affection.

"**pika pipipi (hello Azurill)" **the electric type said as he picked himself off the ground.

"**azu azu azurill azu (it's been a long time since I've seen you)" **azurill said happiness clear in its voice.

"**Pikachu pika (it's good to see you too)" **he replied happily.

"**Pysduck? (Where am I?)" **Pysduck said confused.

Azurill and pikachu just sweat dropped at his comment.

"**Pikachu (I see he is still the same)" **pikachu said .

"**Azu rill (I know)" **azurill replied in annoyed tone.

"**Pikachu pika pika chupika (I don't suppose you can introduce me to your friends)" **pikachu said trying to ignore Pysduck.

"**Azu azurill (you'll like them)" **azurill said bouncing towards the others on its tail.

%%%%%

Azurill arrived over to his friends with pikachu.

"**Azu azurill azu (guys, this my old friend pikachu)" **azurill told the other Pokémon.

"**Vaporeon (greetings)"** the vaporeon said as it bowed its head slightly.

"**Kip (hi)" **the little mudkip said with its smile never fading.

"**Bui (hi)" **the buizel said as she stared pikachu down.

"**Pika pikachu (where's the piplup)" **pikachu said while feeling a little uncomfortable with Buizel's stare.

"**Vap vaporeon vap vapour (she is a little nervous around strangers)"** she said solemnly.

"**Mud kip mudkip mudkip (ever since the attack she has been afraid of large crowds)" **the little water type said in a sad voice.

"**Pika pika chu (I'll go talk to her)" **pikachu said as he walked over to the shiny piplup.

The piplup was sitting alone near some bushes.

"**Pika pikachu (hello, nice to meet you)" **pikachu greeted

Piplup didn't reply but instead shied away from pikachu looking away, she was visibly nervous and pikachu didn't move any closer.

"**pika pika pi pikachu (you don't have to be nervous you can trust me)" **pikachu said in a soft tone.

Piplup looked back at pikachu **"P-piplup? (Are you sure?)" **she said slowly and quietly.

"**pi pika pikachu (what reason do I have to harm you)" **pikachu said in a trusting tone.

"**Piplup pip (ok then)" **she replied as she walked slowly towards pikachu.

The two walked over to Misty's Pokémon and were greeted with an argument between the buizels.

"**bui buizel (you wish you were as strong as me)" **misty's buizel taunted dawns one.

"**bui bui buizel bui (I'm stronger than you)" **dawns buizels retorted.

"**bui buizel bui (says the one who participates in contests)" **she replied smugly.

"**buizel bui buizel! (how do you know that!)" **he demanded.

"**buizel buizel (I've seen you paticipate)" **she answered simply and grinned.

"**buizel bui! (I'm still stronger!)" **he shot back.

"**bui zel (prove it)" **she challenged dawn's buizel.

At that moment pikachu decided to step in to stop the fighting.

"**pika pikachu (guys stop fighting)" **pikachu said as he tried to ease the tension.

"**vap vapoeron vap (he's right its pointless)" **vaporeon also said trying to stop the argument.

The two buizel crossed their arms and looked away from eachother and walked away, both grumbling under their breath.

"**pika pika chupi? (is she usually like that?)" **pikachu questioned the vaporeon.

"**vap vap poreon (unfortunatly yes)" **she replied in an annoyed tone.

"**pip plup? (is it over?)" **the shiny Pokémon said softly.

"**vap poreon (yes it is, little one)**" vaporeon answered in a kind tone.

The group went back to the playground.

%%%%%

On the edges of the playground there was a hill with a small berry bush, dawns piplup was hungry and decided to grab a berry.

He went for one of the berries but aipom jumped up and took it before piplup, he started to go for the second one but it was yet again taken, this time by pachurisu.

He jumped for the last one on the bush and got it, but a shinx was also latched on to the berry.

"**Piplup! (Let go!)" **Piplup yelled at the shinx.

"**Shinx! (you first!)" **Shinx yelled back.

The two went tumbling down the hill and landed on the seesaw buneary, Alice's chimchar and the family of azurill, marill and azumarill were playing on, sending marill and the azurill flying.

Buizel and azumarill ran towards the two and tried to stop them from landing on pachurisu with their tails, the two water types faulted causing the polka dot Pokémon and the aqua mouse Pokémon to fall on the elesquirrel Pokémon. This caused pachurisu to let out a huge discharge attack hurting the azumarill family and buizel.

The two fighting over the berry crashed between the group and shinx go thrown into buneary, buneary fired an ice beam freezing and propelling shinx into azumarill.

Piplup crashed into luxio and it fired a thunderbolt hurting all the non-electric types in the area.

%%%%%

"What's going on down there" ash said as he walked over to the ledge to see the Pokémon fighting.

There were two groups fighting against each other with pikachu and chimchar trying to calm the two groups down.

Dawn's buizel faced off against luxio, piplup against shinx and buneary against azumarill.

"We have to stop them" misty said as she ran towards the stairs, the others except Alice followed suit.

"Stop fighting!" dawn yelled as she ran down with misty and ash.

Suddenly a beautiful musical tune started playing.

The group turned around to see Alice playing her grass whistle, the Pokémon that were fighting stopped and listened to the peaceful sound.

Misty's Pokémon and the others who weren't fighting joined in.

Aipom came to piplup and the shinx with a berry and the two split in half and ate the fruit.

The humans went back up the stairs as Alice began finishing her song.

"What a beautiful song" dawn complimented.

"My grandmother taught it to me" Alice explained.

"It was just so moving" brock said in his usual lovesick tone.

"Thank you Brock" she replied.

Suddenly a green and white Pokémon came through the trees and landed near the group.

"Gal gallade" it said pointing back towards the garden urgently.

"What is it gallade? What happened?" Alice asked curiously.

It jumped up the stairs and continued pointing back towards the garden.

"Something is very wrong… chimchar" Alice said in a worrying tone as she asked for her chimchar to follow her and ran towards gallade.

"We better go too" ash said as he returned his Pokémon.

"right" the others agreed as they returned their Pokémon.

"come on azurill" misty said as she picked up the polka dot Pokémon and ran after the others.

%%%%%

The group ran towards a small area with pillars and a hedge tunnel , they were shocked at what they saw.

The pillars were horribly distorted at the bases, twisted around and had holes in them, some of the pillars had fallen over.

"this is terrible, who could have done this?" Alice asked in shock.

"it was Darkrai" a voice rang out.

The group looked towards the hedge tunnel to see a man red haired man in uniform and a sash waling out of the tunnel with a grin on his face.

"Alberto" Alice said confused as to why he was here.

"it appears there have been recent sightings in town" he continued as he walked past the group.

"Uh excuse me who is Darkrai?" ash asked.

"The Pokémon who wreaked this havoc" he said as he put his put on the broken pillar.

"Pokémon?" dawn asked inquisitively .

"I have heard of darkrai, it is a legendary Pokémon that is known to cause nightmares" brock explained.

'_a Pokémon that causes nightmares, it sure does sound scary' _ash thought.

_%%%%%_

_In a nearby tree that team rocket crashed in, the trio were spying on the unsuspecting group below._

"Handsome hunk spotted in close proximity to Pikachu" Jessie told her comrades looking through a pair of binoculars.

"Looking like a Joe we should get to know" James rhymed looking through his own pair.

"It never hurts ta rub elbows with a rock star I always say" Meowth said doing the same.

"Oh wait what's this" Jessie said as she focused her binoculars on Misty "I don't believe it" she exclaimed in disbelief.

"What is it Jessie?" James asked curiously.

"it's the red headed twerp" she replied.

"Really?" he asked sceptically.

"take a look for yourself" she told him.

James looked through his pair of binoculars and much to his surprise saw the cerulean city gym leader.

"this makes things difficult" he said.

"I know, three twerps is enough but now we have another one" she replied with an annoyed tone.

"Maybe we should lay low for a while, maybe get to know that baron guy" Meowth suggested.

"Agreed" the two humans replied.

%%%%%

Some rustling was heard in the bushes by the group.

"Did anyone hear that" Alice asked the group.

"Darkrai" Alberto said in a low voice as he threw his pokèball.

The pokèball revealed a lickylicky.

"Licki" the Pokémon said as it threw out its tongue.

"Lickilicky, use hyper beam" he order the licking Pokémon.

Lickilicky fired an orange beam of light into the bushes.

"Aaah!" a person yelled out from the bushes causing the group to gasp.

"Now…what did you…do that…for?" the geeky looking guys said as he collided with a tree and a drifblim floated down next to him.

"Tonio!" Alice said as she ran towards him.

_A few minutes later_

A group of cherrim in their sunny form were dancing on a nearby tree.

"Are you okay?" Alice asked the geeky looking guy named Tonio.

"Uh huh" Tonio said weakly as he continued to work on his laptop-like device.

"This is my friend Tonio, he is a scientist" she explained after helping Tonio.

"I was investigating a space-time abnormality that I had detected, something has happened" Tonio said checking readings on the computer he connected to the machine drifblim had been carrying.

Tonio passed the laptop to Alice and started checking the bases of the distorted pillars **(A/N I do not know what the device is so I will alternate names every now an then)**

"It isn't possible" he said as a chunk of concrete fell on his head.

"Tonio!" Alice exclaimed as she dropped to check on him.

"No I am fine, really" Tonio replied holding his head.

"Alice you don't have to be so nice to him" the lickylicky wielding baron said to Alice.

"Alberto?" Alice questioned in surprise and stood up.

"after all dear you are to be my wife remember" he told her as he put his arm around Alice, which she looked very uncomfortable with.

Brock had a shocked look on his face as he stepped back.

"No way!" dawn exclaimed in shock.

"Huh?" ash said confused.

"That can't be right" misty said with a bit of anger in her voice.

Tonio just looked worried, even jealous at that statement.

"Excuse me, but I thought I told you no already" Alice said irritated as she shoved Baron Alberto of her.

Tonio's worried look faded with relief.

"Besides I'm too young to think about marriage anyway" Alice continued and brock looked also relieved at those words.

"excuse me, this isn't the time or place for that kind of talk" baron said holding his hands up trying to calm her "now that that is done how about you come over to my place for a little dinner" he continue putting on the cool guy act grabbing Alice's arm and began directing he his way.

He was stopped and pushed away from Alice by Dawn.

"Cool it! Alice is so not into you" dawn said trying to get baron to back off, Alice's chimchar also joined in to help.

"Excuse me young lady" he began nicely "Butt out!" he finished rudely

"Don't talk to her like that!" misty yelled as she came over to help dawn

"Oh and who would you be?" he asked in mock-interest

"I am misty waterflower of the cerulean gym in Kanto, that's who" she replied sharply.

"And how is this your business?" he spat condescendingly.

"It is MY business because you are yelling at MY friend" she retorted angrily.

Outside of the argument Ash asked quietly to Tonio who Baron Alberto is.

"His name is Baron Alberto, a local celebrity" he whispered back to ash with disinterest.

Back with Alice, Misty, Dawn and Alberto the argument was still going.

"Well come on Alice let's get going" Alberto said as he tried to grab Alice but she ran off towards Tonio, linking their arms.

"See Tonio's the one I like" she said in a confirming voice, this caused brock to turn back to a shocked reaction.

"I am?" Tonio asked surprised by her sudden action.

"Ha ha, you have quite the sense of humour my dear" Baron Alberto said in an amused tone.

"so, this was all just a little joke" tonio said as he laughed nervously.

"a Joke?" Alice said as she looked away, obviously hurt by the statement.

Tonio stopped laughing and looked sad as he had a short flashback.

(flashback start)

A young tonio was on his knees next to an unconscious Alice, he shook her a few times to wake her up.

She opened her eyes to see tonio next to her, she hugged him much to his surprise.

The memory faded as it zoomed out into a clearing of trees.

(flash back end)

"oh Alice" he murmured sadly.

%%%%%

In an alternate dimension the two deities of space and time were still fighting each other, anger apparent in their orange eyes.

Palkia attempted to get away from Dialga, but it kept pursing the spacial Pokémon.

The space deity turned back and tackled Dialga.

It then charged a hyper beam and Dialga also charged a hyper beam.

The attacks were fired and collided causing the unown to scatter.

%%%%%

Pikachu was the first to notice something wrong "pika?" it said as it looked in the distance.

The shockwaves began again, but had less effect than when they were in the balloon.

"not again" misty complained.

Tonio grabbed his laptop from Alice "what is it? Such strange phenomena" he questioned looking at the results on the screen.

Gallade sensed something near a tree clearing "gallade" it said as it got into a defensive position.

A stone pillar with a flower on it was cut clean in half by a pink light.

After the shockwaves stopped a mysterious moving shadow appeared.

"Pika" Pikachu said as he jumped onto Ash's shoulder.

"Something is there" Ash informed the others.

The sun was blocked by the moving clouds and this caused the cherrim to transform into their normal form.

The shadow began to slowly ascend out of the ground **"do not come here" **the shadow spoke telepathically.

"It's Darkrai" Tonio said.

"I'd say so" Alberto replied in an amused tone.

Misty and Dawn rushed over to the group to get a better look at Darkrai.

Darkrai fully rose out of the ground causing a pulse of shadow as it stopped moving.

The sun was uncovered by the clouds causing the sun to shine through the foliage.

"so that is darkrai" dawn said shakily

"afraid so" ash replied

Dawn pulled out her Pokédex "Darkrai, the Pitch-Black Pokémon. Legend has it that on a moonless night, Darkrai will lure people to sleep and unleash nightmares upon them." The female mechanical voice of the Pokédex informed.

"so it was you after all darkrai? Go Lickilicky!" baron commanded.

%%%%%

_In a nearby tree the rocket trio were watching the battle._

"ooh who's that pokemon?" Jessie questioned in a happy voice.

"Dat's darkrai" Meowth answered.

"What a nice looking chap" James commented.

%%%%%

Lickilicky fired a hyper beam at darkrai but it dodged by turning into a shadow.

The others were surprised by darkrai moving under as a shadow.

"What!" Alberto exclaimed.

"It's gone!" ash yelled.

Darkrai flew under the group and rose along the dirt path.

"it's over there" misty told the group.

The darkrai fired a dark void attack that headed straight for lickilicky, it dodged and the dark-type move hit ash as he was surrounded by a dark sphere.

Ash dropped like a ton of bricks into a deep sleep.

"Ash!" misty screamed as she tried to wake him up.

"Pikapi!" pikachu also yelled trying to help misty.

"Lickilicky hyper beam again!" Alberto commanded.

Darkrai dodged again and escaped via shadow transportation.

"Damn it!" Alberto cursed the darkrai.

Ash started fidgeting and yelling from the nightmare.

"We need to get ash to the Pokémon centre" brock said as he held ash under his arms.

"I'll help it's my fault" Alice said as she picked up ash's legs.

"How so?" misty questioned.

"I took you guys into the garden so I'm responsible for what happens" Alice replied.

"You know you don't have to blame yourself" dawn softly told Alice.

"You didn't know it was going to happen" Tonio added.

"Thanks, let's get him to a Pokémon centre" Alice thanked the others and left for the Pokémon centre.

%%%%%

_Inside ash's nightmare_

Ash landed hard on the dirt path after falling, he got up and looked around him but there was no one there.

"Hey guys, misty, pikachu… where are you?" he called but to no answer.

The world looked darker and paler than ash remembered there was not a soul in sight and it had a purple sky.

"Brock... Misty... Dawn!" he continued yelling.

Behind him his shadow grew bigger, when he turned around it transformed into a large shadow of darkrai towering over him with a single blue eye.

The world turned darker and a large pink outline of a Pokémon with a loud cry and glowing red eyes appeared in front of Ash.

"Oh man what's going on!" he asked himself slightly afraid of the experience.

The Pokémon charged ash then disappeared and the world lightened a bit.

Ash noticed darkrai standing in front of him "Darkrai, you're the one doing this" he yelled at the pitch-black Pokémon.

"Alright turtwig I choose you!" he said as he threw the pokèball, the pokèball went up in a cloud of smoke and disappeared.

Darkrai began sinking into the ground which caused a big hole to form and on the other side was Pikachu.

"Hey Pikachu!" he yelled happily but stopped when he noticed pikachu getting sucked in by the hole.

He ran towards the hole to try and save his friend, "Pikachu!" he yelled getting closer to the quick-sand like trap.

He jumped in grabbing pikachu but fell into a dark oblivion with him, ash screamed as he fell.

"PiiiiiKaaaCHUUUUUUUU!" pikachu yelled as he unleashed a powerful thunderbolt attack.

%%%%%

_In the real world_

Ash was getting shocked by pikachu who was cradled in his arms.

They both yelled, one from the pain, one from the effort.

Ash woke up in a bed and noticed pikachu in his arms, pikachu was happy to see his trainer awake "Pikapi!" he exclaimed in joy.

"You're okay" he said as he hugged pikachu, pikachu was having trouble breathing from the force of the hug.

"Ash stop, Pikachu's suffocating" dawn said as she laid a hand on ash's shoulder.

"Huh where am I" ash asked as he let go of pikachu, pikachu looked relieved from the pressure of the hug.

Inside the room pikachu and Alice's chimchar were on the small bed with Ash, Dawn, Brock and misty were to his right by the window, Nurse Joy, Alice, Tonio and a chansey were to his left.

"You are in the Pokémon centre" misty said to ash.

"Chansey" the egg Pokémon chirped.

"You were having such horrible nightmares after darkrai put you to sleep" Nurse Joy explained in an uncharacteristically serious voice.

"Nightmares huh, that means it was all just a dream" ash said in realisation.

"Darkrai has what is known as a 'passive ability'" the nurse replied.

"Passive ability?" ash questioned.

"That is an ability that is always active without needing a trigger, right Nurse Joy?" misty questioned.

"Correct, its ability is known as 'bad dreams', it causes any nearby people or Pokémon that are sleeping to have terrible nightmares" Nurse Joy explained.

"You were really in a bad way" brock said with a smile on his face.

Ash laughed slightly "you woke me up didn't you buddy?" he asked his starter as he rubbed its cheek.

"Pikachu" it replied happily.

"Darkrai don't usually come out when people are around" Nurse Joy continued.

"The town's people aren't going to like this one bit" brock said with worry.

"Because of all those nightmares even the other Pokémon stay away from darkrai" Nurse Joy said as Tonio knelt down onto the floor.

"Well no one wants to have a nightmare, right?" dawn said shaking her hands in a nervous gesture.

"If I ever come across that darkrai again I'll give him a battle but good" he said in an angry voice.

"Pika!" the electric mouse agreed with ash.

"Wait" Alice said causing everyone besides Tonio to look at her, "remember it was Baron Alberto who attacked first" she continued.

"Yeah and a passive ability isn't something you can just turn off, it probably didn't mean to give you nightmares" misty added.

"How can you be sure?" brock asked skeptically.

"Well it was aiming for lickilicky" she said in a factual tone.

"True" he said deciding not to go any further.

Tonio was putting his finger along the swirly pattern of the wood "this is an incredible force, enough to actually warp space" he wondered to himself.

"I have to look at more data!" he suddenly exclaimed to the room.

"Huh… Tonio?" she asked but to no avail, he was stuck in thought.

He left the room talking to himself "there is a strong possibility the same thing has happened before".

The group went to the door to see what Tonio was up to.

"That must be it" he said as another chancey had to squish itself against the wall to let Tonio pass.

"There might be something in Godey's diary that" he was cut off as he hit his head on the wall.

Dawn covered her mouth in surprise and Alice just smiled "that is so him, once he starts thinking about something that's that" Alice continued.

"Hmm?" dawn said in concern.

Ash was clear to leave the hospital room and take a room in the Pokémon centre.

%%%%%

Later that night fireworks were going off as a celebration of the Alamos town Pokémon contest in a few short days' time.

Tonio was not celebrating but examining Godey's diary in his lab.

"Hmmm" he said as he picked up an old photo of a girl that looked like Alice and an old man sitting on a bench "that's Alicia, she met darkrai in the garden" he said to himself intrigued by the story.

"Alicia? Alice's grandmother!" he said as he read the events of Alicia and darkrai.

(Flashback begin)

A young Alicia was running through the garden, she looked just like young Alice but her hair was grown at the back and she wore different clothes.

She stopped and gasped at what she saw.

A roserade surrounded by budew was asleep and suffering from nightmares, "roserade!" it said as it twitched in pain.

A kirlia was also in the same state as it twitched in agony "kirlia" it whispered weakly.

Suddenly a luxray ran from an unseen enemy, "lux RAY!" it yelled as it fired a hyper beam at the opponent.

It was no use as it too was sent to sleep by a dark-void attack, Alice ran towards in in shock "luxray!" she called but it fell asleep anyway and started having nightmares.

She turned to see Darkrai levitating weakly facing her way, it soon collapsed under the tree it was near.

Darkrai was in pain and tried to get up, it felt Alice's arm on its collar and looked up.

She was worried for the pitch-black Pokémon but soon smiled at the dark type.

Elsewhere an elderly man was walking through the garden when he heard a lovely tune on a leaf whistle. He walked to a balcony to see Alice on a swing playing said song and the Pokémon sleeping peacefully around her.

He enjoyed the tune but was shocked when he saw a shadowy figure on the edge of the tree's shadow, it was Darkrai.

(Flashback end)

"And so Darkrai who was hated by everyone else, opened his heart to Alicia and began to live in the garden" he finished reading the story.

"Ah what an amazing story" he said fascinated by the diary.

He turned the page to reveal sketches of the space-time tower and notes of Godey.

"Hmmm" he said interested in the note.

"it turns out that the nightmare told me just what I needed to do, for the future I need to do for the future I needed to leave 'Oración' for the world" he read the entry and pondered.

"'Oración', hmmm" he continued thinking.

%%%%%

In Baron Alberto's mansion, Alberto is being talked to by the rocket trio in a large, dark room only illuminated by the moon and the scale model of the town.

"TV people huh?" he said interested in the three, thinking they are from the media.

"That's us!" Jessie began with much enthusiasm "and being the great baron that drove away the evil Darkrai, an interview with you would be quite a coup" she continued with a little rhyme.

"Conducted by me, the lovely reporterette Jessilina" she introduced herself.

"Directed by yours truly Jameson and photographed by" he also introduced and began Meowth's introduction.

"Meowth now dats a name" the scratch-cat Pokémon finished.

"Hmmm, well I suppose" Alberto said as he pulled a lever causing a small train to activate and go through the scale model town "after all the public does have a right to know" he finished with a grin.

"Thanks for the public service!" the trio said at the same time smiles on their faces, the all laughed slyly afterwards.

**That's it guys finally done.**

**After two months' worth of writing I am finished with this damn chapter.**

**This took Waaaaay to long to finish and I will try and pick up my act since school holidays have started (hooray).**

**One new chapter a month I SWEAR.**

**In the next chapter a menacing rival appears and the show gets on the way.**

**As always leave a review, favourite and criticise in the options below.**


	5. Chapter 4: Rivalries and hardships

**Rise of Darkrai a Pokèshipping story**

**Hi guys! I am sorry this update took so long but I had some very important things that happened over the last few weeks. First off, I was moving to a new house, as a result couldn't get any writing done and second I had exams, exams and more exams, thankfully I have a 3 week holiday to catch up. Well here is a new chapter I hope you enjoy.**

**Hope you guys enjoy this chapter.**

"Speech"

'Thoughts'

"**Telepathy"**

([Name]'s POV)

"Speech"** (translation)**

%%%%% scene transition

**(Disclaimer) I do not own Pokémon or anything affiliated with Pokémon, if I did I would have kept Misty in the show and made more Pokémon origins episodes.**

Chapter 4: Rivalries and hardships.

(Dawn's POV)

"I'll take that one please" I told the salesman who was selling lunar wings.

"Of course, this lunar wing will make bad dreams a thing of the past" he explained as he passed over the lunar wing.

I paid him and rushed back to our group "so, come again!" he said as I left.

Piplup, Chimchar, Pikachu and Misty's azurill were playing around and followed me back ash and the others.

"No need to worry about nightmares now" I exclaimed in my usual cheery voice.

"Why is that?" misty asked me

"I just bought a lunar wing that repels nightmares" I said to her.

"Lunar wing?" Misty asked confused.

"A lunar wing is the name for a feather from the legendary Pokémon Cressilia" Brock explained.

"And it repels nightmares?" Misty asked skeptically.

"From what I have been told, yes" I said wondering why she was being so skeptical.

"Cressilia is known as the opposite of Darkrai, representing the full moon and it has also been known to stop nightmares" Alice explained.

"Can I see it" Misty asked as she held out her hand.

"Sure" I said handing her the lunar wing.

She began inspecting it and sweat dropped after a moment

"Dawn, this is a dyed pidgey feather, you have been ripped off" she said in a nervous tone.

At that moment I felt angry at myself for believing the salesman.

'I should've known it was too good to be true' I mentally scolded myself.

"Give me a moment" I growled uncharacteristically as I took the lunar wing.

I then headed back towards the man's stand to give him a piece of my mind.

(Misty's POV)

"I almost feel sorry for the salesman" I said with a small chuckle.

"How did you know it was a pidgey feather?" Brock asked me curiously.

"I learned a few things while travelling with you, so I put them to use" I turned and looked at Ash as he hasn't spoken a word this entire time.

"He hasn't spoken a word since we left" Brock said in a serious tone

"I think the nightmare has affected him more than we thought" I said as I looked at him in concern.

'I hope he is alright' I thought in fear for Ash.

(Ash's POV)

I reflected on what I saw in my nightmare, a large pink Pokémon.

'I wonder what it was, I wish I knew what it meant' I thought to myself defeated.

"I wish that lunar wing was real" I said out loud to no one in particular.

"Is something bothering you Ash?" Alice asked kindly.

"Hmmm nah" I said shrugging off my concern.

"Alright guys I'm back" Dawn said as she arrived behind us.

"What happened?" Misty asked.

"He was gone as soon as I got back" she said with a low face.

"Well, how much did you spend?" Brock questioned.

"About 50 pokèdollars" she answered sheepishly.

"You spent 50 pokè on a feather?" I asked in a serious voice.

"I thought it was a Cressilia feather" she replied in embarrassment.

I slightly chuckled at her expense.

"What's so funny?" Dawn asked.

"Oh nothing" I told her.

The fact was that she reminded me of when I began my journey, naïve and free-spirited. I would have been lost without friend to help me.

(Normal POV)

Suddenly a musical tune began to play across the town that sounded like it was coming from the space-time towers.

The group arrived inside the towers.

%%%%%

"And this is the sight of the Alamos town Pokémon contest" Alice said to everyone with an echo.

They were in a large stadium lined with seats and many pillars that had purple banners and the roof was made of stained glass with a battlefield below.

"I am so psyched, I can't wait for tomorrow" Dawn exclaimed excitedly.

"If you follow me this way we will be in the middle of the towers" Alice said as she ushered the group up the stairs.

%%%%%

"The towers are just as impressive inside as outside" brock said to his amazement.

"And we are right in the middle" Alice said.

Everyone took a moment to realize how well designed and big the towers are.

Piplup, Pikachu and Chimchar were admiring the stone figures on the wall. It showed a girl playing music on a tree with many Pokémon surrounding her.

"This is the space tower" Alice said as she showed the group a tower with a large pole that had pink spheres rotating around it.

"And this is the time tower" she continued as the group saw the tower with large swinging clocks that were filled with blue.

"The architect Godey who designed the space time towers was Tonio's great grandfather" Alice explained.

"Ahh" the group said in realization.

"And his laboratory is directly below us" she continued.

The group walked to Tonio's lab and opened the doors after a few knocks.

"Tonio it's me, Alice!" she said as she walked through the lab.

The lab had bookcases filled with books on various subjects such as science and design.

"Sorry to bother you!" Dawn yelled apologetically

"Wow!" was all Ash had to say.

They continued walking to an area with devices everywhere.

"Tonio?" she called again until she saw Tonio's legs from behind a desk, not moving.

She gasped in shock and ran towards Tonio's body, the others followed soon after.

"Tonio, are you alright" she asked as she shook his body trying to wake him up.

He began to wake up, "oh Alice, good morning" he said in a groggy voice.

At this remark she dropped him which caused him to hit his head on the floor in disbelief.

"Well don't sleep on the floor" she told him.

"Sorry, I found a reference to the nightmare in Godey's diary last night" he said as he picked himself off the floor.

"I wish I could have a nightmare" he said with a bit of seriousness to his voice.

The trainers just stared at each other puzzled.

"Not only that" he continued "I found a picture of your grandmother" he said as he passed the photo to Alice.

"It shows her with Godey" he told her.

The others gathered around Alice to see the photo, it was the same one Tonio found last night.

"Grandma Alicia" Alice said with a smile.

"Looks just like you" dawn pointed out.

Alice flipped the card around to reveal a music sheet.

"It's music" she said.

(Pokespeech translation)

Piplup and the other Pokémon ran around to an area with a couch and machines, piplup ran onto the couch and examined a circular metal object.

"Pika chu?** (What are you doing?)" **Pikachu asked Piplup.

"Char **(don't)**" Chimchar said before being cut off by Piplup

He balanced the metal object on his head, "pip plup pip? **(What is it?)**" He said as he threw it onto Pikachu's head.

"Pi **(Ow)**" he said before stumbling back "pi pi pikachu! **(Do not let it drop!)**" He stuttered out before falling over dropping the metal object.

Luckily Ash was there to catch the object as it fell.

The others looked at the group of Pokémon in question.

"That was a nice save I guess" Ash said as he looked at his starter.

"Pikachu **(I guess)**" he said sheepishly rubbing his head while knowing Ash didn't understand.

"Azu azurill? **(Are you alright?)**" Azurill asked the downed electric type.

"Pika chu **(I'm fine)**" Pikachu picked himself up.

"Chimchar chim char **(you need to watch what you're doing)**" Chimchar told Piplup.

"Pip plup** (I try)**" Piplup said trying to defend himself.

"Pi kachu **(no you don't)**" Pikachu deadpanned.

Piplup just sulked much to the others amusement.

Ash fixed the top back onto the metal disc and the others noticed more in the shelves.

"What are those?" Ash asked curiously.

"Music discs" Alice said.

"Excuse me?" he asked still not understanding.

"That is how the towers music is able to play" Tonio explained.

Dawn was excited "oh can I try it" she asked eagerly.

Everyone looked at her in disbelief.

"But to do that we will have to walk all the way to the top" Tonio said in an apologetic tone.

"No need to worry!" she said cheerily as she pumped her fist, Piplup mimicked her.

'She is not serious is she?'Misty asked herself with a sweat drop.

%%%%%

After that the group left the lab and started climbing the long spiral stair case that leads to the top of the space-time towers.

Dawn already looked exhausted, "me and my big mouth" she groaned.

Ash on the other hand was full of energy "come on, move it!" he said as he ran up the staircase ahead of everyone, "run!" he yelled back at them.

Pikachu was not far behind ash as he too ran after his friend.

Misty was irritated, "get back here Ash!" she yelled at him as she ran after him.

Brock and the others looked on in disbelief.

"Is he usually that energetic?" Alice asked the two trainers.

"Unfortunately yes" brock sweat dropped.

"Why is Misty chasing Ash?" Dawn asked.

"It's what they do, they just get each other mad" Brock explained

'They sound like an old married couple… wait I have an idea'Dawn thought as she put on a sly grin.

Further up Ash ran past the same balloon Alice uses as a tour guide and continued on not noticing, Misty ran quicker to catch up with ash also passing the balloon.

Ten minutes later Ash has finally slowed down and is tired, "man me and _my_ big mouth" he said to himself and pikachu who was tired as well.

Misty approached behind him also tired, "Ash Ketchum… you better have… a good explanation for this!" she said between breaths to Ash.

"this is the only way to fly" Dawn cheered as her and the others were flying in Alice's balloon.

"Hey that's no fair!" Ash yelled out to them.

"Sorry but you were fast!" Alice yelled apologetically.

"You can climb!" Brock encouraged ash

"Hey let us on too!" Ash exclaimed

"Why did you leave me?" Misty yelled.

"You were too busy chasing your boyfriend!" Dawn directed to misty, emphasis on boyfriend.

The both of them blushed at this comment.

"I'm not her boyfriend!" Ash yelled.

"He is not my boyfriend!" Misty also yelled.

Dawn started laughing at their response.

The Ash and Misty began climbing in silence.

"You see what you did?" she broke the silence.

"How was I supposed to know there was a balloon we could use?" Ash defended.

"If you slowed down you would have noticed" she replied.

"Why didn't you slow down?" he asked.

"Because I was trying to get you to stop" she explained.

"I don't think you knew it was there either" ash accused.

"I did so" she defended

"Did not" he retorted.

"Did too!" she said now yelling

"Did not!" he returned in the same level of volume.

"Pikachu **(here we go)**" Pikachu said in despair.

%%%%%

On the top of the tower the others arrived at the top between the towers.

The room was open and was designed brilliantly with carved stone windows in the shape of squares. In the middle was the machine that played the towers music, it was golden with a bit of dullness in some areas and the exit from the staircase in the middle, the machine was huge and had two large cylinders coming from the back of the machine.

"Godey designed the space-time towers as a beacon of hope for the happiness of people and Pokémon" Alice explained.

"The happiness of people and Pokémon" Dawn repeated.

"And here is our very own beacon of hope now" Brock said with a chuckle

Ash was exhausted and panting heavily, "Finally!" he groaned from the stress.

Pikachu climbed slowly and rested at the top of the staircase.

After a moment Misty showed up and began glaring daggers at dawn for her comment earlier, "he… is not… my boyfriend!" she exclaimed between breaths, her cheeks were rose coloured.

"Then why are you blushing" Dawn pointed out.

"I am not blushing!" she defended "I'm just exhausted from the climb" she said a little more calmly.

"Right" Dawn replied with a little sarcasm.

Misty just sighed in annoyance.

Tonio began turning a handle on the machine that turned the disc station around

"Normally it is set to go off automatically on the hour, but if there is something special you want to play" he explained as he pushed his foot down on a pedal that popped the disc on the bottom out.

Alice picked up the disc, "you put in the discs you need" she finished Tonio's sentence.

"Great!" Dawn said exclaimed as she walked forward to play her music.

"Hey, I want to do that" Ash complained as he walked over to dawn.

"No way, this was my idea" she reminded him as she held the disc away from him.

Ash groaned in defeat, 'I really wanted to try that' he thought.

"Pika" Pikachu tried to cheer up his buddy.

Dawn put the disc in slowly, "then push it down" Alice instructed her and dawn did as she said.

_Click!_

The disc locked in place but did nothing to the young trainers' confusion.

"Brock would you mind" Alice asked as she handed the other disc to the breeder.

"Not at all" he replied.

Alice walked to the large lever on the machine and pulled it down with some effort.

_Clang!_

The antennae on the machine began to spark with electricity, pressure gauges showed readings and the big gears on the sides of the machine began to turn.

The wild pidgey and rattata stared at the moving metal.

Inside the tower a large spiral of vertical piano strings and hammers began to play a beautiful melody.

The trainers just stood in awe and enjoyed the tune, "you see, this tower is the world's largest musical instrument as well" Tonio explained.

"Wow" ash said in wonder.

"Pika" said the electric mouse agreed.

%%%%%

Meanwhile in the town two women were dancing along to the tune with people watching, although there was one person who was not interested.

He was a young man with pale purple hair, he wore a jacket that was mostly blue with black sleeves and wore long grey pants and blue shoes with black soles, he also wore a green undershirt that was shown through his half zipped jacket.

But the most distinct feature was not what he was wearing, no it was his cold emotionless eyes and indifferent stare that set him apart from the people in the crowd. For this trainer he was not here for festivities but for battles, as strength was all that mattered to this boy, anything else was not worth his time.

He continued walking through the crowd until he saw a group of trainers outside the space-time towers.

"Hey kid you up for a battle?" the tall blue haired man named Kai asked.

"Fine, this will be a one on one match and the first Pokémon unable to battle loses" the lavender haired man replied in a serious tone.

'Jeez what is this guy's problem' Kai asked himself mentally.

The two trainers stood apart from each other to make a battlefield.

"I'll go first" Kai told the young man.

"Fine by me" the guy replied in an indifferent tone.

"Let's go Empoleon!" he said as he released the emperor Pokémon.

"Empol" it said as it took its position.

"Elekid, stand by for battle!" the boy released the electric type.

"Elekid" it cried as it spun its arms in a windmill-like fashion, charging electricity in its plug head.

"Empoleon use ice beam!" Kai told the water/steel type.

It fired a beam of cold lightning at the baby Pokémon.

"Dodge and use brick break" the Elekid trainer said calmly

The little electric type dodged and ran towards the large Pokémon with a shining fist

"Dodge!" Kai ordered.

Empoleon dodged swiftly.

"Use drill peck!" Kai said

The emperor Pokémon spun wildly in a drill motion at the electric type and hit it full force.

The electric Pokémon flew back but landed with barely a scratch.

'Just as I thought not very effective' Kai mentally hit himself.

"Thunder punch!" the Elekid trainer countered.

Elekid jumped in the air and came down at empoleon with a fist full of electricity.

It made contact with Empoleon and unlike the drill peck the thunder punch was super effective.

'Damn it! He got a direct hit' he thought worriedly.

"Empoleon, you okay?" the blue haired trainer asked.

The part steel type nodded to its trainer.

"Good, go for a hydro pump!" he ordered.

A large pressurised blast of water was sent towards Elekid.

"Protect" the Elekid trainer replied simply

The electric Pokémon created a shield of green light to protect itself.

The hydro pump dispersed from the shield of energy.

"Brick break!" the younger trainer told his Pokémon.

Again Elekid went flying at empoleon, fist shining.

"Stop that brick break with your fin!" the older trainer commanded.

Empoleon blocked the attack but caused a power struggle between the two.

"You seem to have blocked my brick break" the younger trainer pointed out.

"Yeah it seems that way" Kai replied

'What is he up to?' he thought.

"One small slip and your empoleon gets hit" the trainer continued.

'You think I don't know that?' he thought sarcastically.

"And there is another move Elekid can use with its free arm" he explained with a slight grin.

'Oh no! How could I be so careless' he scolded himself

"Empoleon get out of there!" the blue haired trainer tried to warn his Pokémon.

"Thunder punch!" the Elekid trainer called.

The electric Pokémon used its free hand to punch empoleon with a thunder punch, weakening it and hit it with a brick break, knocking empoleon back towards its trainer.

The Pokémon had swirls in its eyes, signifying victory for the mysterious Elekid trainer.

"No, Empoleon" Kai said as he returned his Pokémon, "You did well" he congratulated the empoleon.

"Good try Kai" Maury said from the sidelines.

"You gave it your best" Allegra said beside him.

The younger trainer recalled his Pokémon without a single word, no thanks or anything.

"That was a good battle" Kai said as he walked up to the trainer.

"_You_ think it was a good battle" he replied coldly with emphasis on 'you'.

"Hey what is your problem?" Kai snapped.

"My problem is that you are pathetic" he answered with no readable emotion.

"What!" Kai was getting furious now.

"You have an empoleon that can't beat a baby Pokémon like Elekid that is what makes you and your Pokémon pathetic" he said as he turned to leave.

'Why that little punk' Kai thought as he began to walk towards the kid.

"Paul!" a voice yelled out through the area.

The Elekid trainer turned around to see Ash and the others by the opening of the space-time towers.

'Wait, Ash knows this guy?' Kai thought to himself.

The group walked over to Paul and Kai.

"Hello Paul" Ash greeted.

"What do you want" Paul replied coldly.

"I just wanted to see how you were doing" Ash explained.

"Does it matter how I'm doing?" Paul asked annoyed by Ash.

"I was just being nice" Ash spat.

"Being nice means being as pathetic as you are" Paul shot back.

"This is the reason you can't make friends, you are always insulting someone" Dawn said stepping into the argument.

"And who said I want friends, troublesome?" Paul asked in a calmer tone than he had been to Ash.

"My name is Dawn not troublesome!" she yelled at him for not remembering her name.

With the others they had been discussing the argument that was happening.

"What is with that Paul guy?" Allegra asked.

"Paul happens to be Ash's rival, they don't exactly have a friendly history as you can see" Brock answered.

"He sounds just like Gary" Misty said already disliking the boy.

"No, he is much worse than Gary" Brock corrected.

"How so?" she asked intrigued.

"He pursues only strength in his Pokémon, friendship is a waste of time in Paul's opinion and he releases any Pokémon he deems weak" Brock explained in a serious tone.

"He thought my Empoleon was pathetic for losing to his Elekid" Kai said.

"But he had major type advantage" Misty said.

"That's what I mean it wasn't exactly like we were evenly matched, even if it was a baby Pokémon" Kai said.

"He seems like a strong opponent" Maury finally spoke up.

"He may use Pokémon that seem weak but he is a great strategist" Kai admitted.

Paul, Ash and Dawn were still fighting.

"Ok this needs to stop" Misty said as she walked towards the arguing group.

"If you think I am so weak why don't you battle me?" Ash challenged.

"I would rather go to the Pokémon centre and heal my Pokémon" Paul declined.

"You are just scared you'll be beaten by me" Ash prodded.

"No I'm not scared, I just don't want to waste my time on such a pathetic opponent" Paul countered with a harsh smile.

"Leave him alone" Misty directed to Paul.

"And who might you be?" he questioned.

"I'm Misty Waterflower from Cerulean city" she answered.

"Waterflower, like the 'sensational sisters'?" he asked with intrigue.

"Those would be my sisters Daisy, violet and lily" she corrected him.

"I challenged the cerulean city gym a few months back only to be faced with pathetic trainers" he said with disdain evident in his voice.

'He doesn't know what he is in for' Ash thought as he mentally pitied Paul.

"What did you call my sisters?" Misty yelled.

Ash and dawn flinched from the volume of Misty's voice.

"Pathetic" he answered calmly.

"That's it, why don't you face cerulean city's true gym leader!" she said with fury.

Paul thought about it for a few moments.

"Fine" he conceded.

"I'll referee" Brock said as he got into position.

%%%%%

Ash and Dawn got to the sidelines with the rest of the group and a small crowd had formed around the battle area.

"This is a battle between Paul and Misty, this will be a two on two battle, the first side to have all their Pokémon faint is the loser, are both sides ready" Brock explained the rules.

"Ready!" Misty said.

Paul just nodded.

"Let the battle begin!" Brock started the match.

"Misty calls vaporeon!" Misty said as she released her water type.

"Ursaring stand by for battle!" Paul released his normal type.

The two Pokémon stared each other down waiting for their trainer's commands.

"Ursaring use bulk-up" Paul ordered the hibernator Pokémon.

Ursaring started flexing its muscles as it gained offensive and defensive power.

"Vaporeon use quick attack" Misty told the bubble jet Pokémon.

Vaporeon began moving at a blinding speed as it tackled Ursaring.

Ursaring shook it off.

"Use focus blast" Paul ordered.

Ursaring charged a blue sphere of energy and launched it at vaporeon.

"Dodge and use water pulse" Misty countered.

Vaporeon dodged and fired a watery sphere at Ursaring.

The attack hit and pushed Ursaring back a bit.

"Use brick break" Paul ordered.

Ursaring began to charge at vaporeon.

%%%%%

In the dimension Palkia and Dialga were fighting in the space deity was hit by a powerful hyper beam which created a cloud of smoke.

Dialga flew through the smoke and fired a roar of time at Palkia.

%%%%%

In Tonio's lab the machines were picking up the waves from the fight.

Tonio ran to the machines.

"This time it is coming from a different space, between the dimensions" he said in realization.

%%%%%

Palkia was flying at high speeds towards a portal that showed Alamos town and it entered.

_BOOM!_

The resulting entry caused a huge explosion of pink light between the space-time towers.

The battle below was stopped as everyone looked in confusion at the glowing sky.

The explosion spread around the city and absorbed back towards the towers and a little pulse of air blew out.

%%%%%

Dialga could not find Palkia and was in an enraged state looking around the dimension.

%%%%%

After the explosion everyone was looking at the source.

"What was all that?" Ash asked.

"The sky just lit up" Dawn said in shock.

Over near the shade of a tree a shadow was moving around.

Paul looked back at the tree as he heard something.

"**Go away!" **a voice warned that caused everyone else to turn around.

Darkrai had begun to rise out of the ground.

Ash ran over to the scene.

"Darkrai!" he shouted at the pitch-black Pokémon.

Paul stood still in shock.

'What is a darkrai doing here, I thought they stayed near Canalave city' he thought to himself.

"Ah ha, go lickilicky!" Baron Alberto said from out of nowhere as he called the normal type.

"Lickilicky" it said simply as it slopped its tongue out of its mouth.

"Leave it to the brave baron to find darkrai in a blast" a disguised Jessie said into her microphone.

"With such a fabulous flash" Meowth and James rhymed also in their disguises.

"Alright darkrai there is no escape, lickilicky use gryoball" the Baron theatrically ordered the Pokémon.

Lickilicky span around like a top at the darkrai.

Darkrai dodged and used discharge on the normal type.

Lickilicky endured the hit and fired a hyper beam at darkrai.

Darkrai dodged again.

"**Dark void!" **it yelled as it fired dark energy balls in every direction.

The dark void caused a few peoples Pokémon to be put asleep besides lickilicky and the groups Pokémon.

"Vaporeon use water pulse!" Misty ordered.

"Brick break on darkrai!" Paul commanded.

Darkrai easily dodged the water pulse but was hit by a super effective brick break.

"**Dark void!"** it retaliated causing vaporeon and Ursaring to fall asleep as well as a sunflora a tropius and a bibarrel.

"Vaporeon no" Misty said as she check on the bubble jet Pokémon.

Darkrai began to flee.

"Damn it!" Paul cursed as he followed the darkrai.

Ash was hot on Darkrai's tail.

"Pikachu use thunderbolt!" Ash told his starter.

"PI KA CHUUUU!" the yellow mouse exclaimed as it fired a bolt of lightning at Darkrai.

Darkrai dodged by slipping into the ground.

Paul and Ash ran after darkrai while baron and his crew began following them.

%%%%%

Ash arrived in a shadowy alley and began to walk down it in search of darkrai.

"Bibarrel" an illusion of a bibarrel said as it came out of the wall startling ash and pikachu.

"You saw that right?" Ash asked pikachu in alarm.

"Pika" the yellow mouse pointed out Darkrai.

Darkrai was sliding in shadow form along a wall and into the ground as it kept going along the alley.

"Quick pikachu use thunderbolt!" he commanded his partner.

The thunderbolt was a direct hit and caused Darkrai to rise out of the ground.

"Alright, now use volt tackle!" he said.

Pikachu charged with electricity and ran towards Darkrai.

Darkrai used double team to split into clones and dodge.

Pikachu started bouncing off the walls to try and get a direct hit on darkrai, but it was no use as darkrai dodged every charge.

"Look darkrai the only one leaving here is you!" Ash told the dark type.

"**No, I stay" **Darkrai responded.

"What does it mean?" Ash muttered.

"Ember!" a voice commanded.

Suddenly shards of fire came from out of nowhere and hit darkrai.

It winced a bit at the pain.

Ash turned back to see Paul and his chimchar standing there.

'Paul' Ash mentally acknowledged the purple haired trainer.

"Use dig!" Paul ordered the fire type.

Chimchar dug into the ground and moved over to Darkrai's position.

Darkrai moved backwards to dodge as chimchar jumped out of the ground to attack it.

The pitch-black Pokémon fired a point-blank dark pulse that hit chimchar directly.

Chimchar was thrown to Paul's feet, it had fainted.

Paul returned it, "pathetic" he belittled the fire type.

Ash was disgusted by the way Paul treated the Pokémon, "it's not like he could take down the darkrai!" he snapped at Paul.

Paul ignored him and started to pull out another Pokémon before being interrupted by Baron Alberto and team rocket.

"Let me handle this, Darkrai is mine" the baron said.

"Baron?" ash asked in surprise.

'I wonder how strong this baron guy is' Paul thought to himself.

"Lickilicky use hyper beam!" he commanded the normal type.

The licking Pokémon fired an orange beam that missed Darkrai, exploding behind it.

Darkrai fired a dark void at lickilicky which made it crash to the ground in a sleeping state.

"Lickilicky" baron muttered in concern as he turned back towards Darkrai.

The dark type had begun to disappear into the ground, and ash ran after Darkrai but it had escaped.

"Come on lickilicky this is no time for sleep" baron said attempting to wake up Lickilicky only to get licked in the face.

"Bibarrel bi bi bibarrel" the phantom bibarrel said as it appeared through the wall.

"Again?" Ash questioned.

The others were shocked at the sight of it, even Paul showed a surprised look.

"Impossible" the purple haired trainer said.

"What is dat thing?" Meowth exclaimed.

"An ultra-rare Pokémon" Jessie suggested.

"That flies through walls" James finished the sentence.

Baron just scoffed, "it can't be real" he said in full confidence.

Just then lickilicky briefly glowed pink as it had a nightmare.

Baron stood up from his position and began to glow pink as well, baron then somehow transformed into a lickilicky.

"What on earth!" Paul shouted in surprise.

"Maybe so, but how do you explain what you're up to?" Jessie shrieked.

"What!" baron yelled, annoyed by the rocket trio and Paul.

"I guess the camera does add on a few extra pounds" Meowth said in shock.

"b-b-b-b-b baron!" James stuttered.

"Spit it out, I say!" baron demanded.

Ash just stood there confused, "man I must be having another nightmare, pikachu I want you to hurry and wake me up" he told his buddy.

"Pikachu!" the electric mouse complied and electrocuted his trainer with a thunderbolt.

"Okay I'm good" Ash said eyes wide open and dazed.

"What is going on?" Paul said as he questioned his sanity.

Jessie began twitching nervously and showed the baron his reflection in her make up mirror.

Baron Alberto had realized he had been turned into a lickilicky.

"MY ROYAL ATTIRE!" he yelled a yell that could be heard across the city.

The sky had become cloudy and dark during the chase on Darkrai.

%%%%%

In the nearby Pokémon centre nurse joy was checking on Paul's ursaring with a stethoscope, the hibernator Pokémon was having terrible nightmares.

"Nurse Joy I think I might need an exam too," he stammered as a vaporeon began running through the air "it's these hallucinations" he moved to the side as it began to run between the two.

"But I see them too" Nurse Joy whispered.

Misty had been staying beside her sleeping vaporeon. "I hope ash is alright" she said to no one in particular.

"I'm sure he'll be fine Misty" Brock comforted her.

"You're probably right" she said with a small smile, she had known Ash a long time and he had gotten out of worse situations but she still feared for him.

"Chansey, chansey, chansey!" a Pokémon cried out.

The nurses Pokémon entered the room with Tonio, Alice and Dawn entered the room with more sleeping Pokémon, Chansey laid out a mat for the Pokémon and the humans put them down gently.

The three Pokémon, a murkow, pidgey and combee were having nightmares while Dawn and Piplup looked on in helplessness.

"I guess you're all still a little shook up" Alice said sympathetically.

"I think you are right" Dawn agreed, the others nodded.

"Guys we have got a problem!" Ash said as he ran into the centre.

"Ash what's wrong?" Misty said to the raven haired boy.

"We've got a problem here too" Dawn informed.

The sound of bouncing could be heard as Baron Alberto entered the room.

"Oh really, well excuse me people but you don't even know the meaning of the word 'problem'" he rebutted.

The group had stopped in shock of what they saw, after a few seconds Dawn was the first to act.

"Since when could Lickilicky talk!" she shrieked.

"I am not Lickilicky," he said as his tongue came out he shook his head and grabbed his banner, "I am the Baron Alberto" he yelled.

"No way!" Dawn yelled in amazement.

"Piplup!" the water type mimicked his trainer.

The Baron waddled over to Tonio and shook him, "quick Tonio, turn me back at once!" he demanded.

"You act like Alberto" Alice said skeptically.

"That's because he is Alberto" Paul's voice came from the doorway.

He walked in and came over to the group.

"He transformed right in front of us!" Ash said trying to make the others believe him.

"And us!" The rocket trio came in carrying Lickilicky with much difficulty "he transformed right in front of our beady eyes" Jessie said in a strained voice.

"Here is the real deal as proof" James added as the trio collapsed on the ground.

Tonio was checking on his laptop as an illusion of ursaring went past him.

The laptop showed lickilicky and Baron Alberto in a scanning screen, the Baron's body being formed out of Lickilicky's.

"The real world is merging with the dream world" Tonio said.

"What are you talking about?" Alice asked.

"All of these Pokémon are dreaming that they are being chased by something frightening" Tonio explained.

"Well what about me?" Alberto questioned.

"I guess lickilicky must be dreaming it turned into you" Tonio answered.

"Say what?" he replied.

"The space around our city is being acted on by a powerful force creating a space-time anomaly resulting in all of the strange things we have been witnessing" he continued.

"But why?" Alice asked in concern.

"I don't know" he admitted.

"It's that darkrai, every time it appears strange things happen, don't you see?" the Baron shouted like he knew the answer.

"Perhaps" Tonio replied in an unsure tone.

Paul was deep in thought about the whole situation and hadn't said a word.

'The darkrai can't be that powerful can it? To make dreams manifest like this' he asked himself.

The baron walked back over to the sleeping lickilicky, "Lickilicky, you must wake up this instant and go destroy Darkrai!"

While baron was trying to wake the normal type, the rocket trio was having their own conversation about their pay.

"Hey guys, what about our in depth report?" James muttered.

"We ain't got enough depth to fill a kiddy pool" Meowth answered.

"Look first we'll get Darkrai, then we'll dig deep" she said in a whisper.

Just then Kai, Maury and Allegra ran into the room.

"Look people we're stuck" Allegra announced.

"It's the craziest thing" Maury said vaguely.

"We are trapped in town and we can't leave" Kai explained.

"What!" the whole group said in panic.

**Another chapter bites the dust, again I'm sorry this took so long and I will try and get more updates done. One thing is for certain I am NOT giving up on this story.**

**Until next time, I'm FunFX and read, follow and review.**


	6. Chapter 5: Trapped in space-time

**Rise of darkrai a pokèshipping story**

**Hey guys! I'm back with a new chapter that was actually updated quicker than usual (I know, strange). Anyway I hope you enjoy this short note and enjoy the chapter.**

"Speech"

'Thoughts'

"**Telepathy"**

([Name]'s POV)

"Speech"** (translation)**

%%%%% scene transition

**(Disclaimer) I do not own Pokémon or anything affiliated with Pokémon, if I did I would have a more mature plotline and proper rivals for Ash (like Paul for instance and not that terrible "rival" Cameron… stupid writers).**

Chapter 5: Trapped in space-time.

(Normal POV)

On the edges of the town there was a thick fog that obscured any vision of the outside world. On the bridge a large group of Pokémon trainers had gathered to see if they were really trapped.

Allegra threw her pokèball in the air to reveal a honchcrow.

"Now honchcrow, defog!" she commanded the duel type.

The honchcrow's wings glowed blue before it fired several blue crescents into the fog, defog had no effect.

Our heroes had gasped at the sight, "defog didn't do a thing" Brock commented.

"No matter which way we try to escape, we always end up where we started" Kai explained.

"I'll be back" Ash said as he ran towards the fog with Pikachu.

%%%%%

As Ash kept running the fog got thicker, he slowed down to a walk as he came out the other side, where he started.

Ash was staring at the town, he turned back to look at the fog.

"But I know we ran straight" he said in confusion.

"Pika chu" Pikachu tilted its head also confused.

%%%%%

"I'm telling you it's that darkrai and no doubt up to one of its evil tricks and nothing is going to change until we destroy the nasty demon!" The baron ranted to the trainers.

"It's nice to see Baron Lickilicky back up to speed" Jessie said into her microphone.

"It's Baron Alberto!" he yelled as he licked her across the face with his massive tongue.

"My make-up!" she complained as she wiped the saliva off her face

"Pokémon trainers, lend me your ears, your strength and your expertise. We must destroy this loathsome and evil darkrai, and now follow me into the fray" Alberto encouraged the group with a pep-talk.

"Right!" most of the trainers followed the baron back into town.

"What do you think?" Allegra asked Maury and Kai.

"They need us" Kai said

"Yeah" Maury agreed.

The three trainers walked after the crowd, leaving Ash, Misty, Brock, Dawn, Alice, Tonio and Paul to themselves.

"They need us too" ash said.

"Right" Dawn said as her, Brock and Ash started walking towards town.

"Hold on" Alice called out to the leaving trainers.

"Huh" the three said in unison.

"Alice?" Brock said curiously.

"The thing is that I don't think Darkrai is behind any of this" Alice admitted.

"What?" ash questioned.

"But it must be Darkrai" Dawn reasoned.

"No, it is a bit too early to be certain. You see back when I was a boy, Alice and I were playing together in the garden" Tonio explained.

%%%%% Flashback %%%%%

A young Tonio was running through the garden when he heard a voice.

"Tonio, yoo hoo I'm up here, come on up and play with me" the young Alice called from a high cliff and began running.

"It's dangerous up there, watch where you're going!" Tonio warned.

"Don't worry I'm fine" she said as she ran on the edge.

The edge had collapsed and Alice fell with a scream.

Tonio had begun running to try and save her as she had fainted on the way down.

"Alice!" he yelled as he ran towards her.

Suddenly a silhouette had jumped and saved her to Tonio's shock.

The silhouette had laid Alice down on the grass gently.

Tonio came around the corner to see a shadow moving away from her into the trees.

He checked on her to see if she was alright, he let out a sigh of relief to see she was fine.

He looked into the trees to see the shadow go into the ground.

"Alice, are you okay, say something" he said as he tried to wake her.

"Alice!" he yelled which woke her up, her eyelids slowly opened.

"Tonio, oh you saved my life Tonio" she said as she hugged him to his surprise.

"Tonio, I love you" she said holding onto a shocked Tonio.

%%%%% Flashback end %%%%%

"But the truth is, I didn't save Alice that day" he admitted, "now I am sure of it, it was Darkrai that saved you that day" he continued.

"Tonio…" Alice said, stunned by the revelation.

"Godey's diary also says that it was your grandmother Alicia who opened up Darkrai's heart, I don't believe that Darkrai is evil either" Tonio concluded.

"But why is Darkrai fighting with everyone?" Dawn asked.

"Something is keeping everybody from trying to leave town" Ash continued.

"I don't have all the answers yet, for now we just hang on" Tonio answered.

"Darkrai was fighting back because it was attacked first and it never attacked without being provoked by Alberto, that's also the reason I didn't go" Misty spoke up for the first time in a while.

"I guess that makes sense" Dawn replied.

Dawn had just noticed Paul staring at the fog on the bridge.

"Paul why didn't you go with the others" she asked.

Paul let out a sigh, "there is no point in fighting it" he answered vaguely.

"What do you mean?" Misty questioned.

"Even if Darkrai was behind this, what use is there fighting a Pokémon that can effortlessly defeat even skilled trainers Pokémon?" Paul asked rhetorically.

This caused the others to look at the city in concern for the other trainers.

%%%%%

With Barons group of trainers Meowth was recording Jessie and Alberto in his camera.

"We join the venerable baron lickilicky and his posse of Pokémon trainers as their quest to destroy darkrai gets into full swing" Jessie announced into her mic.

For the second time today the baron had licked Jessie in annoyance.

"It's baron alberto" he muttered as he kept walking.

Maury had stopped in his tracks, "there it is! It's darkrai!" he yelled.

Everyone looked at the pitch-black Pokémon on a chimney as it stared at the space-time towers with intent.

%%%%%

In the air, Tonio's Drifblim drifted around the city taking videos with the device connected to it.

The videos transmitted to Tonio's computer in his lab, he was watching it closely.

"Let's see," he said to himself. "These space-time anomalies began occurring after Darkrai appeared," his laptop showed pictures of the distorted garden pillars. "But at this point the nightmares hadn't yet materialised. It didn't take ash very long to wake up…" he looked intently at the videos the drifblim sent,

It showed the bridge, an alley and the video of the explosion.

"Soon after that, Darkrai appeared in the square. After that…" he stared at his laptop showing lickilicky and a form of the Baron rising out of it. "Then that's when the nightmares materialised" he said in revelation.

Tonio gasped, he saw the explosion and the smaller explosion after that.

"Now I see!" he exclaimed as he reversed the video and paused in the middle of the explosion. "That has to be the defining event!" he zoomed in on the centre of the explosion until he saw a huge creature in the light.

"What's this!" he exclaimed.  
>%%%%%<p>

Back in town the trainers had launched a full scale assault on Darkrai.

Darkrai grunted as it took a direct flamethrower from Allegra's infernape.

A masquerain, crobat and ledian were flying around the two.

"Infernape, Mach punch, go!" Allegra instructed.

The fire-fighting type hit Darkrai with a glowing fist and knocked it off the rooftop.

Darkrai landed and used its hidden legs to stabilise its levitation.

"Empoleon use ice beam!" Kai ordered.

The water-steel type fired the cold beam at darkrai that temporarily froze it, it broke out almost instantly.

The dark type was surrounded by a huge team of an infernape, torterra, empoleon, rhydon, stunky and a tangrowth.

"Torterra, use bullet seed!" Maury ordered.

This caused the other Pokémon to fire an assortment of attacks like flamethrower, ice beam and hyper beam.

"Darkrai is in a bad way, could this be the end?" Jessie commented.

Darkrai retaliated by using dark pulse on every Pokémon, stunning them.

"**Do not interfere!"** darkrai warned as it used dark void to put the trainers Pokémon to sleep.

"Infernape no, wake up!" Allegra called to her Pokémon.

"That move was simply… lovely!" Jessie gushed.

Baron and James looked at her weirdly.

"I mean, darkrai's evil rampaging must be stopped!" Jessie replied nervously.

"And since there is no one better to lick that brute. Why don't you?" James added.

"You do strike an imposing pose" she said sweetly as James giggled.

"I guess I could take advantage of the situation," the baron said as he flapped his arms in determination "I've got it and I'm going for it, go gyro ball!" he said as he span at the dark type.

Darkrai easily dodged the attack.

"Alright, now it's wrap!" he said as he wrapped his tongue around Darkrai.

This took the pure type off guard as it didn't expect the move.

"Heh-heh-heh, not bad" the baron complimented himself.

Darkrai began to shift its weight and force the baron into a spin around the dark type and threw him into the rocket trio which sent them flying.

"We're blasting off again!" the trio yelled as they hit the canopy of a nearby tree.

%%%%%

At the Pokémon centre Tonio had gathered the group to see his discovery.

"Look at this" he told them.

The image zoomed into the creature as seen before.

"Hey, that's the same thing from my dreams" Ash said.

"What do you mean 'in your dreams'?" Paul questioned.

"When darkrai first appeared it put Ash to sleep and he suffered a nightmare, I guess that is what he saw in the dream" Alice explained.

"Look closely, I'll digitally enhance the image" Tonio said as he did just that.

The image was clearer than it was and it showed Palkia.

"Oh my" Alice gasped.

"Palkia… isn't it?" Brock identified the Pokémon.

"The legendary dragon-water type?" Misty asked.

"Yes, it is said that Palkia lives between dimensions and rules space. A Pokémon that has been called a deity" Tonio explained.

"A deity!" Dawn exclaimed.

"When the garden was turned into a wasteland, it was a sign of Palkia's appearance," Tonio said ignoring dawn's outburst "Darkrai sensed what was about to happen, it was at the moment the sky lit up that Palkia burst into the city" he explained.

"But darkrai was the only one that saw it" Ash realised.

"Right" Tonio replied.

"Darkrai tried telling Palkia to go away" Misty added.

"And that was what Darkrai tried to tell me in my dreams, about Palkia" Ash said.

"So that means Palkia is here!" Dawn said in a slight panic.

"But where is that?" Brock asked.

Tonio just stared at the screen, knowing full well where Palkia was.

%%%%%

Darkrai was in front of the space-time towers staring at the near-invisible Palkia.

The group ran towards the town square to see Darkrai charging at Palkia's shield.

"Is that" Dawn began to speak.

"Darkrai" Ash finished her sentence.

It collided and rebounded straight into the ground creating a small hole.

"Darkrai no!" Ash yelled and concern.

That impact on the shield made Palkia visible.

"It's Palkia" Brock pointed out.

"Oh my…" Alice said in worry.

"Piplup…" the water type said in amazement.

"Pika…" the electric mouse agreed.

"Azurill" the little water type cried, scared by the legendary.

"It's okay Azurill, it's okay" Misty said trying to calm Azurill.

Suddenly Darkrai burst out of the hole and charged at Palkia yet again.

"**Go away!" **the pitch-black Pokémon yelled as it fired a dark pulse.

The dark pulse absorbed into the shield and woke up Palkia.

It roared a loud vibrating call, causing the shield to disappear and clear the fog, revealing distorted space and coloured lightning.

The group stood in shock at the events unfolding.

%%%%%

In the Pokémon centre, Nurse Joy and chansey were helping the Pokémon when the dream Pokémon disappeared.

Vaporeon grimaced and woke up, not understanding where it was.

"Vaporeon you're awake" Nurse Joy said in relief.

Soon after the other Pokémon began to wake up, their trainers happy to see them awake.

Paul's ursaring got up slowly.

"Ursaring ursa? **(Where is my trainer?)**" It asked Vaporeon.

"Vaporeon **(I don't know)**" the water type answered.

"If you're wondering where your trainers are, they are in the town square confronting Darkrai" Nurse Joy said to the two Pokémon, unwittingly answering their question.

"Ursaring ursaring** (I want payback on that damn Darkrai)**" the normal type said as it headed to its trainer.

Vaporeon silently followed.

Lickilicky also woke up after the two had left.

%%%%%

Meanwhile in town, the Baron Alberto struggled to make his way up a flight of stairs.

He began to glow pink and revert to his human form, he ran to a nearby window to see his reflection.

He laughed in amazement at the revelation that he was once again human.

"Alright I'm me… wonderful me!" he yelled in celebration.

The celebration was cut short as he noticed the hostile sky above.

"Enough for one day!" he pleaded.

The entire city was floating in a foreign dimension, a rocky platform cut off from the rest of the world.

%%%%%

"The entire town is floating in another dimension" Tonio realized.

"Vapor!" the water type yelled as it reached Misty.

"Vaporeon you're okay" Misty hugged the pure type.

"Ursa" the hibernator Pokémon said.

Paul just nodded at the Pokémon.

"Everyone's awake" Alice said.

"Of course!" the Tonio exclaimed, causing everyone to look at him "Palkia transported the town to another dimension, so when darkrai's nightmares became fixed in an unstable space they acquired material form" he explained.

The spacial Pokémon landed in front of the towers, causing the nearby lamp posts to disappear in a flash of purple.

The broken orb on Palkia's shoulder began flashing pink.

"It looks like Palkia's hurt" Alice pointed out in concern.

Darkrai fired another dark pulse at the deity, creating a cloud of dust.

Palkia blocked the attack and had taken flight.

Darkrai use shock wave on Palkia, it used protect to defend.

Palkia charged at Darkrai with a punch, Darkrai dodged and flew away.

An enraged Palkia pursued the dark type through the towers and fired a pink aura sphere at Darkrai.

Darkrai successfully stopped the attack with a shockwave, blowing it up.

The group stood there watching the two legendries battle above the town.

Suddenly a lard screeching cry could be heard as orange meteors rained upon Darkrai and Palkia.

Palkia took the attack full force while Darkrai blocked it.

"What's that?" Dawn asked.

"It's a dragon type move called Draco Meteor" Paul answered.

"Draco meteor?" Ash asked.

"Don't you know anything?" he replied in annoyance.

Ash gritted his teeth and was about to speak but was cut off by Misty.

"You two do realize we have a bigger problem to worry about!" she yelled at the both of them, mainly Paul.

Another screech was heard, this time Dialga appeared and tackled Palkia into the ground a few blocks away.

The impact caused parts of the buildings near them to disintegrate in pink light, while team rocket ran from the two giants.

Palkia threw Dialga into the ground and flew between the buildings, Dialga soon followed.

As Palkia flew over the rocket trio the force of wind knocked them over, Dialga flew past them and propelled them further.

Dialga fired a hyper beam at Palkia above the city, it hit sending the spacial Pokémon into the ground in front of the space-time towers.

Dialga landed near Palkia.

"Who's that?" Alice asked

"That is the Pokémon said to govern all of time, Dialga" Tonio answered.

Dialga began to roar with blue pulse waves coming from its mouth, the waves surrounded the city and caused all the clocks to go haywire.

It also caused shockwaves that caused the group to start staggering.

Palkia got up and roared at Dialga.

"They are both considered to be deities" Brock said.

"Palkia and Dialga must have battled in between dimensions, so the wounded Palkia fled here and sealed of the town in yet another dimension, attempting to hide itself from Dialga" the scientist deduced.

Darkrai closely observed the two legendries' stare down, waiting for one of them to make a move.

Dialga charged a hyper beam.

Palkia readied an aura sphere.

They both attacked causing an explosion of energy and shook the ground.

The group again staggered.

The two creation Pokémon took to the skies firing hyper beams and aura spheres at one another.

One aura sphere was sent towards the towers but Darkrai quickly took the blow and prevented damage to the towers.

"Two entities that never should have met crossed paths in the space-time rift and their unbridled wrath has enveloped the city… and the result, destruction" Tonio quoted his great grandfather's diary.

"What do you mean?" Alice worriedly asked.

"The nightmare that I read about in Godey's diary is happening here and now, right before our eyes" he explained.

"Wait, your saying Godey was dreaming about future events" Alice asked in disbelief.

"Yes" Tonio said as he nodded.

Dialga's blue gem began to glow and the gear like spines on its back began to expand.

Palkia's good pink orb also began to glow and its wings expanded.

On Tonio's laptop it showed two semicircles filling up with bars of pink and blue, representing the amount of energy being charged by Palkia and Dialga respectively.

Tonio gasped, "Tremendous energy!" he said in amazement.

Palkia charged pink light into its forearm.

Dialga charged blue light and fired a beam of temporal energy, Roar of Time.

Palkia fired a pink crescent of energy towards Dialga, Spacial Rend.

The attacks collided.

_Boom!_

The resulting explosion caused a blinding light and knocked the group over from the force, even darkrai had trouble staying still.

The rooftops began dissolving in pink light and soon after the edges of the town were disappearing.

"Is everyone okay?" Alice asked.

"Yeah" Dawn replied.

"I think so" Brock answered.

"I'm good" Misty said.

'What power!' Paul thought ignoring Alice's question, he stared at the deities.

Said deities continued battling, Dialga firing several hyper beams.

One hyper beam hit the garden carving a path in the ground.

"Bee!" the combee said in unison as they flew in panic.

Alice looked back at the battling duo in sadness.

Dialga blew up the entrance to the garden with another hyper beam.

This made Alice determined to stop the fight as she ran towards the fighting Pokémon.

"Alice stop!" Tonio yelled but to no avail.

'What is she doing, she is going to get herself killed' Tonio thought.

Everyone else was having the same thought.

"Stop fighting right now!" she begged.

The fighting continued still, Palkia had Dialga in a head lock, Dialga broke free and head butted Palkia and started falling from the sky, Palkia grabbed Dialga's head and directed the two towards the ground.

The two fell towards Alice.

"Ahh!" she screamed.

She didn't move, she didn't run, she didn't even breathe because she was paralyzed in fear.

'Is this the end?' she asked herself waiting for her demise.

Suddenly darkrai jumped in front of her and fired a dark pulse at the creation duo.

The attack knocked them into the air, saving Alice in the process.

"Darkrai" she said in disbelief.

Darkrai began to fight the larger legendries, Dialga fired a hyper beam but it missed.

Palkia launched an aura sphere at darkrai and it missed but collided with Dialga with a super effective hit.

The two creation legendries were side by side against Darkrai as the other trainers that previously fought the dark type arrived in the town centre.

"**Go away!" **it yelled at the two as it launched a plethora of dark voids.

The space-time legendries used protect and blocked the attack.

They countered with a hyper beam and aura sphere combo.

It hit hard as Darkrai was flung into the garden.

"Darkrai!" Alice yelled as she ran into the garden to help the fallen dark type.

The others followed after her while the two legendary Pokémon resumed their battle.

**There it is guys, another chapter done!**

**This chapter is shorter than my previous one so sorry to those who wanted a longer chapter. Also I would like to give thanks to those who reviewed this story, it means a lot to me and I will continue writing for you guys.**

**As always remember to read, follow and review. See you guys next time****.**


	7. Chapter 6: a garden for everyone

**Rise of darkrai a pokèshipping story**

**Hello again, I am back again with a new chapter and I hope you guys enjoy. Also I would like to give a shout out to those who reviewed on this story as we now have over 10 reviews, thank you guys so much and as always read, review and follow.**

"Speech"

'Thoughts'

"**Telepathy"**

([Name]'s POV)

"Speech" **(translation)**

%%%%% scene transition

**(Disclaimer) I do not own Pokémon or anything related to Pokémon, if I did I would have had Ash face the elite four by now and give more backstory to characters like Paul and Tobias (to name a few).**

Chapter 6: A garden for everyone

(Normal POV)

Alice ran through the garden to get to the injured Darkrai and the others followed her. When they arrived they saw Gallade, Shinx, Luxio and three Kricketot watching over the pitch-black Pokémon.

They all gasped (except Paul) at the fallen dark type as Alice walked up to it.

Ursaring began to walk forward to attack Darkrai but surprisingly Paul put his hand in front of it and shook his head.

Ursaring growled in response and stopped.

She knelt down and put her hand on its collar, it was shuddering in pain and had its eyes closed until Alice laid her hand on it.

"Darkrai, are you alright?" she asked in a soft concerned tone.

The dark type stared at Alice, **"… Alicia" **it said confusing Alice with her grandmother.

The blonde smiled and shook her head, "my name's Alice, you see Alicia was my grandmother" she explained.

"**Alice…" **Darkrai continued to stare at the young woman.

The others walked up to Darkrai to talk to it.

"You tried to protect our town, I'm sorry I didn't understand" Alice apologized.

"Yeah me too" Ash added.

"Pika" Pikachu agreed.

"Sorry" Misty said.

Paul just grunted in agreement.

"Darkrai, please forgive us" Dawn pleaded.

Darkrai didn't say anything or even look at them instead it just sank into the ground.

_Boom!_

The group turned back to the city to see an explosion and darkrai flying towards the explosion, despite the pain it was enduring.

Alice walked forward greatly worried, "Darkrai, no!" she said in concern.

%%%%%

Above the city Dialga charged a Draco Meteor, multiple meteors collided with Palkia causing it to cringe in pain.

The rest of the meteors were headed towards the space-time towers, Darkrai appeared in front of the towers and used Dark Pulse to stop the projectiles.

Only two meteors landed in the garden and didn't cause much damage.

On the bridge overlooking the garden the group saw the buildings in the city disintegrating into pink light.

"Check it out guys!" Ash said to the group.

"What's happening?" Dawn cried out as Maury, Kai and Allegra came to watch.

"It's all just… disappearing" Misty said.

"It's the town's perimeter wall, it's begun to collapse!" Tonio exclaimed to every ones shock.

His laptop showed a simulation of the town collapsing into nothing.

%%%%%

In the city everyone was running and screaming to get away from the raging legendries and disappearing city.

Team rocket was running from the collapsing city close behind them.

"This kind of blasting off we don't need!" they yelled as they continued running.

%%%%%

"If we don't act everything will disappear into another dimension" Tonio with an urgent tone.

"But what can I do?" he said to himself.

He gasped as he remembered reading Godey's diary.

%%%%% Flashback %%%%%

"It turns out the nightmare told me just what I needed to do, for the future I needed to leave Oración for the world" Tonio read the diary that showed schematics of the towers.

%%%%% Flashback End %%%%%

"But it didn't say what Oración could be" he said out loud.

"Oración?" Alice said in interest.

"Alice, you've heard of it?" he asked.

"Yes" she said as she looked through her bag and pulled out the picture of her grandmother, "Oración is the name of the song my grandmother taught me to play on the leaf whistle" she explained as she turned it over to show the music sheet and s shaped symbol.

"That's it, Godey foretold the disaster threatening the future and left Oración for us!" he exclaimed.

"The sound discs!" she realized.

Tonio nodded and looked at the towers.

"Wait what is Oración?" Paul said as tried to keep track of information.

"Oración is a song with the power to soothe the fiercest rage…" Tonio answered.

"So you think that playing the song will stop all this" he asked skeptically.

"It will work, it has worked before" Dawn said to Paul, he turned to her "when our Pokémon were fighting in the garden Alice played the song on her leaf whistle and all the Pokémon just stopped fighting" she explained.

He just nodded in understanding, although he was still skeptical.

"Plus it's our only hope" Dawn added.

The group besides Brock and the contest trio (Kai, Maury and Allegra) headed to the space-time towers to search for the music disc containing Oración.

%%%%%

In the central room of the towers the group had arrived.

"There is no song named Oración in the research lab, but it might be here" Tonio said as they reached the mural.

The mural had many circles that had music discs in them.

"But which ones Oración?" Ash asked.

"There are so many!" Damn complained.

Alice stood back from the group and looked at the mural.

She closed her eyes and remembered a memory of her and her grandmother in the garden.

%%%%% Flashback %%%%%

The tune of Oración was being played on the leaf whistle, Gallade and two Budew were sitting on a branch listening.

Other Pokémon were sitting around an elderly Alicia and a young Alice, the song was finished as Alicia looked at her Granddaughter.

"It's called Oración" Alicia said in an old cracking tone.

"Oración?" Alice asked.

"That's right" she answered as she closed her eyes, "it means 'prayer', my mother taught it to me a great many years ago" she explained.

Alice nodded.

"Promise me you will always remember it" Alicia said.

"Sure!" Alice replied with a smile.

%%%%% Flashback End %%%%%

Alice opened her eyes with a jolt and pulled out the music sheet.

"Oración means 'prayer'" she muttered as she held it up, "remember…" she said.

She saw the music discs and gasped as she took a few steps back and she held up the sheet and looked at the S symbol and at the music discs underneath the girl on the mural.

At the top of the disc circles was a music disc with the same S symbol on it, it was at the very top.

"That's it!" she said as she pointed at the disc.

Tonio, Ash and Paul spun the circle until the disc was within reach.

Ash grabbed the disc and held it in his hands.

"Got it!" he said in triumph.

"Let's hurry to the towers" Tonio said.

"Right!" Ash said.

"Let's go Chimchar" Alice said as she called her trusty fire type.

"Chimchar" the starter did a backflip as it got ready.

%%%%%

Outside the battle was still going as Palkia threw Dialga into the garden.

People were being directed across the bridge by Brock and Nurse Joy and their Pokémon.

"That's it, move into the garden as far as you can!" the nurse called to the large group of people.

"And don't push" Brock added, "take it easy and stay calm" he continued.

In the garden Dialga dodged an Aura Sphere by Palkia and retaliated with a Draco Meteor.

Palkia took the hit from several meteors and the rest went towards the bridge.

"Ready!" Allegra told the evolved starters.

"Fire!" Kai ordered the Pokémon.

Infernape used Flamethrower.

Empoleon used Ice Beam.

Torterra used Bullet Seed.

They all attacked the meteors and blew them up.

One stray meteor flew through the smoke and sped towards them.

Infernape jumped to dodge the attack but it headed towards Brock's Croagunk.

Croagunk didn't move, instead it hit the Draco Meteor with a powerful Poison Jab, the attack pushed Croagunk back as it did one final thrust to destroy the meteor.

"Croak" it said as it lifted its head in pride.

Brock's Happiny was dancing and chanting in happiness.

"Way to go Croagunk!" Brock said in surprise and Sudowoodo started dancing while making maraca sounds from its hands.

"The evacuation is nearly complete, I'm going to wait with the others at the rear of the garden" Nurse Joy informed Brock.

"Good, I'll handle things here" he replied.

"Sudo!" the rock type saluted.

"Thanks Brock" she said as she ran towards the other side of the bridge.

"But Ash, Misty, Dawn even Paul, I hope they are alright" he said to himself.

%%%%%

Chimchar used Flamethrower to make the balloon go higher. The group had used the balloon to get to the top of the towers quickly.

Chimchar was sitting at the top of the balloon, Dawn's piplup sat on the edge of the basket, pikachu sat on Ash's shoulder and azurill in Misty's arms.

Palkia and Dialga flew between the towers and the space deity fired an Aura Sphere at Dialga, Dialga dodged and the attack headed towards the balloon.

Darkrai stopped it from hitting the balloon with a Dark Pulse that caused a shockwave that knocked the basket.

Piplup fell out of the basket and towards the ground.

"Piplup, no!" Dawn screamed as she tried in vain to grab piplup.

"Staravia let's go!" Ash acted quickly and called out the flying type.

Piplup flapped its fins in vain as it tried to slow its descent.

"Staravia!" the flying type cried as it caught piplup on its back.

Staravia flew to the top of the tower with piplup as the group let out a sigh.

Dialga fired a Draco Meteor that Palkia dodged.

Darkrai used Dark Pulse to destroy most of the projectiles but it had to block the following attacks.

One of the stray meteors hit the balloon basket blowing open one side and Dawn falling out.

To everyone's surprise Paul had been the one to grasp her hand, stopping her from falling.

He struggled to keep her from falling but Palkia flew past causing her hand to slip and for her to fall.

"Dawn!" Ash yelled after her.

She landed safely on a walkway around the stairs to everyone's relief.

Dialga then flew past knocking the other trainers out of the basket and onto a stone edge of the building.

Ash began to slide down from the strong winds created by Dialga and was forced to jump to the walkway.

Ash landed on both feet and hands above his head grasping the music disc, the landing hurt because his legs were stiff as he hit the ground.

Staravia and piplup landed beside ash on the railing.

"Piplup!" she said as she hugged the water type.

"Pikapika!" the electric mouse cried as he jumped off the balloon and landed on staravia's back.

"Watch out!" the two heard a yell and saw Misty falling and landing between the two.

Her landing was smoother as she hit the ground while crouching, softening the impact.

They all looked up and saw Paul jumping and doing a roll as he landed, preventing any injuries.

"Show off" Ash muttered under his breath.

%%%%%

"Alice!" Tonio yelled.

"Right… Chimchar let's get moving!" she commanded her Chimchar.

Chimchar used Flamethrower and lifted them further into the air.

The two legendary were flying around the towers when Dialga stopped.

It expanded the spikes on its back and its gem glowed blue.

Palkia got out of the way before Dialga fired a Roar of Time, the beam of temporal energy headed straight for the balloon that Alice and Tonio were in.

Time seemed like it slowed down as Darkrai shielded the balloon from the blast without hesitation.

The resulting explosion was massive and created a large smoke cloud, the force of the explosion knocked Tonio out of the balloon and into a plummet.

"Tonio!" Alice screamed as she held onto the frame of the balloon for dear life.

The group were shocked as they saw the balloon descend quickly towards the ground.

Alice saw Darkrai fall from the sky with a trail of smoke behind him, she gasped at this as she continued her descent towards the bridge.

"Alice!" Baron Alberto shouted as he and his Lickilicky ran across the bridge to try and save her.

"Chimchar!" she called to her fire type as it clung onto her arm.

The Baron kept running until he fell flat on his face.

'Here goes nothing' she thought as she jumped from the balloon on to the stone railing of the bridge.

She began to falter as she flailed in an attempt to balance herself but she fell off with a scream.

She was caught by Lickilicky's long tongue as it tried to pull her onto the bridge he struggled as he pulled her closer.

She slipped and fell off the bridge, only to be caught by a hand.

It was Tonio who was hanging onto his Drifblim by the machine, he survived.

"Excellent work!" he praised the ghost type as he let it go, it floated back up into the air.

Alice began to tear up in happiness as she hugged the scientist, "Tonio!" she said.

She noticed Lickilicky standing there happily.

"Oh baron, I owe you thanks as well" she said to Lickilicky thinking it was baron.

"Humph, I'm over here" the real Baron said in an unamused voice and dirt on his face.

The two looked at him but gasped at the disintegrating bridge behind him.

The Baron was confused by their reactions and turned around, he screamed in surprise.

"Not Agaaaaiiiin!" he shouted.

%%%%%

"Okay they both made it but we have to get moving" Paul said as he began to climb the stairs.

"Right" the others said.

Ash pulled out two of his pokèballs and released Aipom and Turtwig.

"Aipom" the long tail Pokémon called.

"Turtwig" the grass type also called.

"Turtwig, Aipom" he said to them, "watch my back okay" they nodded.

"Misty, dawn we need to go" he said as he climbed the stairs.

The two and Turtwig followed Ash up the stairs and Aipom climbed the outside of the stairs.

As they went up the town was collapsing more by the minute, the two legendries continued their fight.

Dialga used Draco Meteor that went towards the stairs.

"Here it comes!" Dawn warned.

Turtwig and Aipom were ready for it and used a Razor Leaf and Swift combo that stopped the meteors.

"Way to go you two!" Ash praised form above.

'Impressive' Paul thought but would never say out loud.

"Good work!" Misty said to the two.

The group continued to run up the stairs even if they were tired.

%%%%%

The playground in the garden was now disappearing as well as a fair bit of the garden.

In a fountain of water darkrai floated, it laid still, eyes closed, unconscious.

Brock picked Darkrai up with help of a Quagsire and laid him on the stone bricks near the water.

The contest trio and their Pokémon watched from the side.

Gallade, Tonio and Alice ran to Darkrai to check on it.

Alice knelt and looked at the dark type, "Darkrai" she said softly.

"Darkrai are you alright?" she said to it, her soft voice echoing through his mind.

%%%%% Flashback %%%%%

Darkrai was having a memory, a memory where he first met Alicia.

He opened his eyes to see the young girl standing over him, an expression of worry on her face.

She smiled slightly when she saw him open his eyes, "are you hurt, are you in pain?" she said with her voice still worried.

He didn't answer but groaned quietly, he had fought the Pokémon in the garden and sustained a lot of damage.

"Oh you are" she said sadly.

Darkrai shut his eyes tight and groaned in agony.

"I'll help you, Alicia will make you well" she said with a smile on her face.

He opened his eyes at that. He surprised someone would help a Pokémon like him, a Pokémon that causes nightmares.

She giggled and closed her eyes in her childish innocence.

%%%%% Flashback End %%%%%

Palkia flew quickly over the garden and head butted Dialga, the time deity fired a Hyper Beam in response.

More and more of the garden began to eat away as Brock and Tonio investigated.

Even parts of the stair case began to disappear.

As the group ran they caught up to Paul who had run ahead of them.

"Took you long enough" he muttered to himself.

The stairs between Paul and the others faded.

"What? Oh no!" Ash yelled.

"Damn it" Paul cursed under his breath.

"What are we going to do?" Misty asked.

"I could throw it to Paul" Ash said referring to the disc.

"That's a stupid idea!" Paul shouted.

"At least it's an idea!" he spat back.

"It's still stupid Ash" Misty said.

"If you miss we all die, or did you not think of that?" Paul coldly reprimanded him.

Ash put his head down in shame.

"I thought so, you don't even think things through, pathetic" he insulted him.

Pikachu sparked its electric sacs in anger.

Misty glared at Paul.

Paul just shrugged it off.

"Wait I have an idea" Dawn said as she called her Buizel and Buneary.

"Bui!" the water type said with its arms crossed, ready for action.

"Buneary!" the normal type also said ready.

"Buizel use water gun! Buneary use ice beam!" she told the two.

They did as they were asked and the result of the two was a staircase of ice.

"Perfect!" Dawn exclaimed.

"How did you…" Misty began.

"Benefit of being a co-ordinator" she cut her off.

"Pika pika!" pikachu said to buneary.

Buneary just covered her face with her fur in embarrassment.

Ash walked slowly up the steps and didn't even look at Paul as he passed.

Dawn walked up and glared at Paul but kept walking.

Misty stopped.

"You didn't have to be so rude!" she spat with venom.

"Why do you care?" he said calmly.

"Because I don't like it when people insult my friends" she said lowly.

"You insulted him yourself" Paul said pointing out her contradiction.

"Uh" she said unable to respond.

Paul ran up the stairs to catch up with the group.

Misty was stunned by his retort, she ran after him when she noticed the tower beginning to collapse.

%%%%%

The people who were in the garden commanded their Pokémon to attack the collapsing areas of the town.

The attacks managed to hold the destruction back.

Dialga fired a Hyper Beam at Palkia.

Palkia used protect and threw an Aura Sphere at Dialga.

Dialga took the hit and tackled Palkia.

They both bellowed at each other.

Everyone stood and stared at the fighting legendary Pokémon with anticipation.

Alice stood up with tears in her eyes because the town she had once known was disappearing because of the fight between Dialga and Palkia.

She couldn't take it anymore, "stop this right now!" she yelled at the Pokémon.

Darkrai's eyes shot open as he heard Alice, he was still remembering his encounter with Alicia.

%%%%% Flashback %%%%%

He was lying under the tree he had collapsed under as Alicia used a spray bottle of potion on Darkrai.

The potion caused darkrai to feel a little better.

"You don't have to leave, you can stay here" she told the dark type.

He was touched by this sentiment, **"do you mean that?"** he asked through telepathy.

"Of course, you can stay here for as long as you like" she replied happily.

Darkrai's heart was opened as he was befriended by the young girl named Alicia.

"This is everyone's garden" she said with a smile, before he faded out of the memory.

%%%%% Flashback End %%%%%

Dialga's gem glowed blue.

Palkia's gem glowed pink.

The two reared up and bellowed as they prepared for one last battle.

Tonio's laptop was making beeping noises and showed the energy levels at full power.

"Oh no!" Tonio said in dismay.

Baron Alberto and brock looked at him.

"If those two collide one more time" he said slowly.

Brock looked panicked as he realized what he meant.

"Our dimension… is through!" he said in horror.

Alice was scared, more scared than she had even been.

She heard the water behind her ripple, the wind breezing through her hair and a growl.

She turned around and gasped as Darkrai flew past her, leaving the water to splash and sudowoodo to run.

The men saw darkrai fly over and were shocked.

%%%%%

Darkrai sped towards the duel, a stare of intent deep in his eyes.

He had one goal, do not let Alamos town be destroyed.

Dialga charged a temporal beam that would distort time.

Palkia charged an attack of dimensional power.

"**Stop!" **darkrai yelled as he surrounded himself in a dark sphere.

Dialga fired a Roar of Time!

Palkia fired a Spacial Rend!

The two attacks hit the sphere and absorbed into it.

"**Argh!" **darkrai screamed in pain.

When the attacks absorbed into the sphere it expanded and engulfed the legendary duo.

On the inside of the sphere an explosion of energy occurred and disintegrated several parts of the town.

%%%%%

The side of the stair railing disappeared giving clear view of the sphere, the group stopped to take a look at the sphere.

On the inside of the sphere darkrai was floating, its arms extended to the side and its visible eye was glowing bright blue.

"**THIS GARDEN IS EVERYONE'S" **he yelled loudly for everyone to hear.

"Darkrai" Ash murmured.

"The disc we need to hurry!" Misty reminded him.

He nodded and continued running, the others followed him.

"Darkrai's blocking the explosion's energy, but for how long?" Tonio wondered.

Inside the sphere, all the Pokémon were either twitching or grimacing in pain as the explosion's energy as tearing at them.

Darkrai was the one taking the most damage as he groaned and closed his eye in exhaustion.

The group kept climbing the stairs with the Pokémon following them.

Buneary used Ice Beam to stop the particles from eating behind her.

The sphere released more energy that knocked off the railing that ate away as he fell.

"Ash!" Misty yelled as she grabbed his hand with her left and held onto a pole with the other.

Dawn tried to get to them but the pole misty grabbed onto disappeared and they fell.

Buizel was quick to act as he used water gun to shoot them onto a stone ledge.

They both struggle to balance but made it as they held their hands together.

They smiled at one another as they stayed alive.

"Buizel thanks a lot!" Ash called to the water type.

"We'll try and make it to the top, be safe you two!" Dawn told them.

"And try to be quick because I don't know how long Darkrai can last!" Paul shouted.

"Pikachu take care of everyone!" Ash told the electric mouse.

"Pika!" it responded in a way that said 'okay'.

The Pokémon ran up and jumped across the holes in the stairs.

Ash and Misty made it into a walkway on the inside of the Time Tower and ran around to get to the middle of the towers.

%%%%%

Another pulse happened in the sphere, this time the sphere shrunk and released Dialga and Palkia.

Ash ran past a window and kept running but Misty stopped and looked out the window to see the sphere shrinking.

"Ash comes back!" she screamed at him.

He ran back to see the events unfolding outside, he gasped.

The sphere had disappeared and absorbed into Darkrai.

"**Aaaargh!" **he screamed in agony, his eyes were closed tight, and he was in too much pain to open them.

On the ground everyone watched in anxiety as Darkrai's shield gave way.

Dialga and Palkia had decided they had had enough of darkrai as they fired a Hyper Beam and Aura Sphere respectively.

The two attacks sped towards Darkrai, but he didn't move because he had accepted his fate.

The two moves collided, creating a bright explosion.

Everyone had watched in horror at what the legendries had done, even Paul stopped in shock at the explosion.

Darkrai had risen out of the smoke cloud, but he had his eyes closed.

He began to fade away.

"Darkrai no!" Alice screamed, tears running from her eyes.

Darkrai had one last memory before he finally faded.

'This is everyone's garden' the words of Alicia rang through his head.

He completely faded away.

The dark type who had been falsely accused of crimes he didn't commit was gone.

He was nothing but ashes in the wind.

The whole town turned silent as they watched where Darkrai had disappeared.

Darkrai was not a villain, but the true hero of Alamos town.

**That is another chapter gone, and we are getting close to the ending.**

**Darkrai is gone, but he will always be with us.**

**School is back on for me so time between updates will be longer.**

**Remember to read and review.**

**Until next time, I'm FunFX. **


	8. Chapter 7: Oracion

Rise of Darkrai: a pokèshipping story

**Hey guys, at long last this story had returned and this will be close to the end of the story before I move onto my new story, Pokémon Platinum, a redone version of the anime of diamond and pearl.**

**I also have a story based on The Walking Dead Game so you can check that out if you want.**

**Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter.**

"Speech"

'Thoughts'

"**Telepathy"**

([Name]'s POV)

"Speech" **(translation)**

%%%%% scene transition %%%%%

**(Disclaimer, I do not own Pokémon or anything affiliated with it, if I did I wouldn't be writing this story for my readers)**

Chapter 7: Oración

(Normal POV)

Everyone in the city had gone quiet, they were shocked by the death of the dark type known as Darkrai.

"But how?" was all Dawn could say.

"He just couldn't hold it back any longer, he was too weak after blocking the explosion" Paul explained without any form of coldness.

A tear came to Dawn's eye as she looked out over the ruined town.

"We need to keep moving, we don't want to end up like Darkrai or all he did would be in vain" he said seriously.

Dawn just nodded and followed Paul and all the other Pokémon up the steps.

'I hope you guys make it' Dawn thought in concern of Ash and Misty.

%%%%% in the garden %%%%%

The two deities roared at each other, preparing to do battle once more.

Brock, Tonio and Baron Alberto looked at the two in shock, they had never expected darkrai to die, even Alberto was regretting his earlier accusations.

Alice was impacted the most by the Dark types demise, she had been saved multiple times by him but she had to watch her friend die to protect the city. Tears were pouring down her cheeks as she looked at the battling deities in grief.

She missed the dark type and she hoped that the town could be saved so that everyone would have to suffer the same fate.

%%%%% in the towers %%%%%

Ash and Misty ran like they never have in their lives, they made their way to the top of the towers near the music room.

They went as fast as they could down the corridor leading to the room.

"I am not going to let Darkrai down, not after everything that has happened" Ash declared with a furious determination.

"We need to hurry before Dialga and Palkia start fighting again" Misty urgently told him with Azurill in her arms, the baby Pokémon was upset by the death of Darkrai but he was determined to help out in any way.

They reached the steps to the music controls as Pikachu emerged at the top of the spiral staircase.

Turtwig, Buizel and Buneary came after the electric mouse.

"Pikachu!" ash said, happy to see his starter again.

"Pikapi!" Pikachu replied as happily.

Paul then appeared from the stair case with Dawn right behind him.

"Piplup…piplup…" piplup panted as he made it to the top of the stair case.

"Good, you made it" Paul said.

"Yeah, we need to hurry" ash said as he pushed the pedal of the machine to remove the discs.

Misty pulled out the disc and set it down, while ash attempted to put Oración in the space.

Ash grunted a bit as he pushed it into the hole but to no avail.

"It won't fit!" Ash exclaimed.

"Oh no" Dawn said in worry.

%%%%% outside %%%%%

The space-time Pokémon collided with a heavy thud as they resumed fighting, the impact forced them back as they stared each other down.

This was the final standoff.

Palkia's pink gems began to glow as it charged a Spacial Rend, it's arms spread out and ready to fight.

Dialga's blue gem glowed as it raised its fore legs in mid-air and expanded the gear on its back, it was charging a Roar Of Time.

Tonio's computer was reading off the charts results from the two deities.

"This is it… if those two collide one more time, then it's over for all of us!" Tonio exclaimed.

The rest of the group gasped at this revelation, was it really the end for them?

"But the others… please get there in time" Brock pleaded for his last hope.

%%%%% in the tower %%%%%

"What do you mean it won't fit!" Paul asked Ash in disbelief.

"It just won't fit in, I mean this is Oración isn't it?" Ash asked himself.

"Just great" Paul sighed in defeat.

"Come on, it must be it!" Dawn said to the two of them desperately.

Misty however noticed the symbol on the back of the disc matched the symbol in the middle of the disc spaces.

"Try the middle" she suggested.

Ash turned the disc over to see the matching symbols, he laughed slightly in joy and put the disc in.

"It fits!" Dawn smiled, maybe they would be able to stop this.

Paul pulled the switch to the machine as hard as he could, he pulled it to the bottom and began to power the music station.

'let's hope this works' Paul thought.

The Pokémon began to cross their fingers if they had any as the switch was turned on.

The result was weak sparks of electricity from the antennae.

"The power… it's dead" Paul said grimly.

The others grimaced at his words, their last chance to save the city was out of power.

The bottom floor of the tower began to fade away, the stone mural of Alicia in the garden was gone.

It seemed all hope was lost, that was until an idea popped into ash's head.

"Wait, that's what we need" Ash said cryptically.

"What do you mean?" Misty asked.

"Power, we need to charge the machine with electricity… so we use our Pokémon" he explained.

"I didn't believe I would ever say this, but that is brilliant" Misty complimented him.

"We need to be quick!" Paul urged as he saw Palkia charge its attack.

%%%%% the garden %%%%%

Dialga began to charge the Roar Of Time.

Tonio's laptop results were full as a whirring noise sounded from it.

"Too late!" Tonio exclaimed in horror.

The entire city was just a small floating island between space-time dimensions.

%%%%% the tower %%%%%

"Staravia!" the bird Pokémon said as it dropped Pikachu near the antennae.

Dawn released her Pachirisu and Paul release his Elekid to help Pikachu.

"Pachirisu! use discharge!" dawn told the electric type.

"PA chi!" It did as it was told and released a huge burst of blue electricity into the machine.

"Pikachu! Use thunderbolt, full blast!" Ash told his starter.

"PIIIIKAAAACHUUU!" the little yellow mouse released an enormous yellow bolt of electricity into the antennae.

"Elekid! Use thunder!" Paul commanded the electric type.

It swung its arms and release a huge blast of electricity into the machine.

The light show was blinding as the electric type trio released as much energy as they could muster.

The electricity began to fluctuate and a few bolts burst out from the blast zone.

One bolt headed straight towards Dawn.

"Dawn!" Ash yelled but couldn't get to her.

Dawn shrieked as the bolt zeroed in on her, she felt a hand push her out of the way.

"Argh!" she turned around to see Paul take the hit for her, he struggled against the current and collapsed to the ground.

She was surprised that a man who had little care for other people and Pokémon, and had little interest in the wellbeing of others saved Dawns life.

Elekid stopped it's attack when it saw what happened to its master.

"Elekid!" the yellow and black electric type ran to Paul.

"Paul!" Dawn said in horror as she checked on him.

"Oh no!" Ash said as he and Misty ran to the Downed trainer.

He was covered in black soot from the bolt, he had a few burns on his skin and blood had stained a bit of his clothes, he wasn't breathing.

Dawn began to break down in a panic as he tried to help the trainer.

The current began to start the machines as the gears began to turn and pressure gauges went up.

The electricity from Pikachu and Pachirisu stopped as they panted in exhaustion.

%%%%% outside the tower %%%%%

A beautiful tune began to play, it echoed through the vast expanse and the tower began to glow with a bright golden hue.

The two deities paused their attacks and stopped fighting.

In the garden the others looked on in awe at the amazing spectacle, the residents of the city were quiet, the contest trio stood in amazement.

The city stopped degrading as the particles of pink stopped eating away at the city.

%%%%% inside the tower %%%%%

"Come on, breathe… breathe!" Dawn said with a tear down her eye as she compressed her hands onto Pauls chest, she tried to do CPR to revive him, but it was no use as he was too far gone to be saved.

"No…no" Dawn said quietly, she sniffed in sadness.

The Pokémon trainer named Paul was dead.

"Elekid…" the electric type cried in sadness, even guilt as its master died before it.

"It's all my fault" Dawn said in guilt, she was weeping now.

"No it isn't" Misty tried to comfort the weeping girl, but she too was beginning to cry.

"yes it is, if I wasn't standing there the bolt… wouldn't have been able to hit me, he wouldn't have had to…" she sobbed in guilt.

"you can't blame yourself, it was just an accident" Misty assured her.

"I can't believe he's gone, just like that" Ash said with a lowered head, he too was crying but quieter than the others.

They all just looked at each other in mourning the fallen trainer.

%%%%% outside the tower %%%%%

The sides of the tower began to unfold into stems of golden flowers, the music continued playing and golden dust was flying everywhere.

The music got intense as the dust formed a thick blanket on both sides of the tower, it looked like a giant pair of wings.

The dust was everywhere as the two deities were calmed because of the music, their feud was at an end.

The broken gem on Palkia's shoulder glowed green and was fixed.

The group in the garden gasped at this.

"That's it, that's Oración!" Tonio said in awe.

Alice took out the music sheet and looked at the leaf symbol and flipped it to see the picture of Godey and Alicia.

She was crying sweet tears as she looked at the towers with a smile on her face.

%%%%% inside the towers %%%%%

A green light flowed over the corpse of Paul, after a few seconds the burns on his body were mostly healed and the soot that covered him was gone.

The three trainers looked at him.

Paul inhaled sharply and began to cough heavily, he was in pain but he was alive.

"Your alive!" Dawn said as she gave Paul a tight hug, he was surprised at this but didn't resist it, he just sat there motionless.

"What happened?" Paul asked as he was let go by Dawn.

"You saved me and… you died, but now you're alive, because of the song" Dawn said happily, tears still streaming down her face.

"Saved you? wait I died!" he said in shock.

"Yeah, but Oración revived you" Dawn replied with a smile on her face.

"I'm glad you're not dead" Ash said to him.

"Me too" misty agreed.

Paul just nodded to him.

'I-I died, to save troublesome. why did I save troublesome?' he asked himself internally.

He looked at Elekid, who was crying and was hugged by the little Pokémon.

Paul quickly came to his senses and stood up, he pulled out his pokèball and recalled elekid.

'I better not catch you crying in the future' he mentally scolded the electric type, but for now he was too tired to talk.

He attempted to walk but almost fell from exhaustion, Dawn supported him by the should.

"I can walk troublesome" he told her somewhat in a somewhat annoyed tone.

"Really? You almost died and are exhausted, I don't think so" she replied, Paul just sighed in defeat.

They all walked out (Dawn held an exhausted Paul under the shoulder) onto the balloon docking area to see the wings of Oración, they dissipated after a few seconds and restored the city to its former self.

Dialga roared and left the dimension, Palkia flew over to the group on the tower.

The spacial Pokémon spoke in its growly speech to the group.

Ash sprung into gear and confronted the legendary Pokémon.

"Palkia! Can't you see what you've done? You destroyed the whole town, Darkrai and almost killed everyone… you bring this place back to the way it was!" Ash yelled at the bipedal Pokémon.

"You have to do it, please Palkia" Misty pleaded to Palkia.

The other Pokémon agreed with them.

Palkia understood their demands and roared and caused a pink light to envelope the city, they were all warped out of the dimension.  
>%%%%% back on earth %%%%%<p>

The town was teleported to the place it formerly stood with a pink sphere around the city, The sphere disappeared almost instantly to reveal the city back to as normal as it was.

The group on top of the tower stared at the beautiful blue lake that surrounded the town.

"We're back!" Dawn said in surprise.

All the Pokémon had smiles on their face as they looked at the city.

%%%%% in the garden %%%%%

The group in the garden lightly laughed at the return of the city to its rightful place, the other inhabitants ran across the bridge and looked in awe.

"Thank goodness everything is back to normal" Brock said.

Everyone nodded in agreement.

Except Alice, "not everything is back to normal" she said sadly.

They all stopped in realization, the 'Hero of Alamos Town' was gone, Darkrai was no more.

"I'm sorry, Alice" Tonio apologized.

"You don't need to be. He did it to save all of us, he did it of his own accord" she explained to him.

Tonio still didn't like to see Alice sad, this was going to be hard to get over but they would find a way.

"let's go" he said simply as he gestured the others to come with him.

"I'm good, I'll just stay here for a bit" Alberto said to Tonio.

"I need to find the others" Brock piped up, he had forgotten about them.

"Let's head to the towers, we'll catch up with them there" Tonio suggested.

%%%%% in the towers %%%%%

It had been a long walk down, especially Paul in his condition, but they had made it to the bottom.

"I hope I never have to climb a staircase like that again" Ash said to himself.

"We need to get Paul to the Pokémon Centre so he can heal up" Dawn told the others.

Paul just grunted in pain, his injuries were starting to be more painful now that the adrenaline had worn off.

They heard doors open.

"Ash! Misty! Dawn! over here" Brock called out to them.

He ran over to the others with Alice and Tonio in tow.

"hey brock" Ash greeted.

"Hi… what happened to Paul?" Brock said noticing the hurt trainer.

"when we were powering the machine with electric attacks a bolt of electricity struck him, he died for a few minutes but the song revived him, he is still in bad shape though" Misty explained.

"he died?" Brock said in shock.

"yeah he did" Dawn confirmed.

"I don't understand how he died though, I've been hit with electric strikes before but I've always been fine" Ash said in confusion.

"I think I can explain" Tonio said.

Everyone listened to him.

"An electric type attack on its own doesn't usually have enough current to kill a person, but if the attack was strong enough, or if a combined strike of electric type attacks were to hit a person they would most likely be killed by it" Tonio explained.

"Machines usually run at higher voltages too so that would explain why the attacks did so much" Brock added on.

"Precisely" Tonio said to Brock.

"We still need to get him to the Pokémon Centre" Dawn told them.

"Right" the others said as they went to the Pokémon centre.

%%%%% the Pokémon centre %%%%%

They had dropped Paul off at the Pokémon Centre and Nurse Joy said that Paul would be fine if he rested for a few days.

While Brock and Ash were getting there Pokémon healed Dawn and Misty were sitting down in the lobby of the Pokémon centre

Dawn was still worried for him though, as seeing someone die in front of you would be traumatizing in any case even if the person survived.

"I hope he'll be okay" she muttered.

"He'll be fine, the nurse said all he needs is some rest" Misty told her sympathetically.

"I still can't believe he took the bolt for me, I mean he seemed so cold and distant I didn't think he'd be so selfless" Dawn said.

"Maybe deep down he really does care for others, he just has… difficulties admitting it" Misty mused.

"Maybe so, I'll ask him when he's better, thanks misty" Dawn said, she had cheered up a bit.

"No problem" misty said with a smile.

A few seconds passed until dawn perked up.

"I remember where I saw you before" Dawn said suddenly.

"what do you mean?" Misty said in confusion.

"Ash has a lure that looks just like you, Brock said that you gave it to him, he wouldn't let me use it though, said it was special" she explained.

Misty slightly blushed, 'he still has it after all this time' she was touched by this.

"So how long have you known Ash?" Dawn asked changing the subject.

"I've known him since he started his journey, he was running from a flock of spearow that he angered, he jumped into the stream I was fishing in and I literally fished him out along with Pikachu" she answered.

"What happened then?" Dawn asked interested where this was going.

"He stole my bike after the spearow flock came back, I chased after him to find that my bike had been destroyed by pikachu" Misty continued, Dawn slightly chuckled at this.

"What's so funny?" Misty asked.

"Just the fact that pikachu destroyed my bike as well" Dawn replied.

"Really?" Misty was shocked by this.

"Yeah, Pikachu was separated from Ash and I was just starting my journey, I attempted to catch him but he fried my bike and Piplup" she said with a weak laugh.

"So that's three bikes that have been destroyed by Pikachu" Misty said.

"Three?" Dawn said confused.

"He also destroyed May's bike, she was one of Ash's friends from Hoenn" Misty explained.

"Wow… I didn't know Pikachu was such a pyromaniac" Dawn joked.

The two of them shared a laugh, the two of them were becoming friends quickly.

"What are you two laughing about?" Ash asked as he, Pikachu and brock walked over.

"How many bikes Pikachu has destroyed" Misty said to Ash and Pikachu.

The both of them just looked real nervous and sheepishly laughed.

"I forgive you two though, for what happened to my bike" Misty said to the both of them.

"About time, when we first met you wouldn't stop reminding me of the bike" Ash said in mock annoyance.

"Well people change Ash, even the most stubborn of us" Misty admitted.

Alice and Tonio walked up to the group.

"Alice said she wants to go back to the towers, to say goodbye to Darkrai" Tonio told the group in a sad tone.

They all nodded and went to the towers to pay their respects to the fallen dark type.

%%%%% at the garden %%%%%

The sun was setting with a deep orange glow, the air was silent with a sky of pink. The beautiful scenery betraying the solemn atmosphere.

The group were over the playground where they all first met, where they were first told about Darkrai.

Everyone was silent and hung their heads low in remembrance, everyone had a look of sadness.

"Thank you Darkrai" Alice said as she closed her eyes, remembering Darkrai.

%%%%% Flashback %%%%%

Darkrai charged at the hidden Palkia and crashed into the ground, he had shot straight out and fired a dark pulse at the creature.

When she was going to be crushed by the falling deities darkrai appeared and saved her by hitting them with a Dark Pulse.

Darkrai took a direct hit from a roar of time to protect the towers, he was sent plummeting into the garden.

Darkrai taking another hit from a Roar Of Time to protect Alice and Tonio in the balloon.

In the garden Darkrai flew off to stop the battling legendries.

It stopped the collision of Spacial Rend and Roar Of Time with an energy shield.

It was hit with an Aura Sphere and Hyper Beam and flew into the sky, disintegrating into pink particles.

%%%%% Flashback end %%%%%

"For everything" she finished with open eyes, she was now crying.

Brock moaned in sadness.

"Piplup" the little water type said quietly.

"Azu" the normal type began to cry.

Misty began calming azurill down.

"I'm sorry Darkrai" ash began, the others looking at him, " I should've known, you were just trying to do the right thing" he began to break down in tears.

"Pika…"

The Dawn started crying, then Misty and finally Brock, they all felt horrible for what happened to Darkrai.

Tonio put his hand on Alice's shoulder to comfort her, she turned around to walk away, Tonio's arm around her shoulder.

Brock and Dawn were the next to leave.

Then Misty.

And finally Ash and Pikachu.

They all walked away with heavy thoughts.

On the rocky hills outlining the city was a shadow of the space-time towers, after a few seconds a new shadow emerged.

It was darkrai's shadow.

Pikachu was the first to notice from ash's shoulder, "pikachu!" it said in surprise.

Ash turned and gasped at the sight, he ran to the railings and looked at in surprise.

The others followed him and were equally surprised, the shadow flowed like the real darkrai.

They all turned around and looked at the top of the space-time towers, on top of the pink orb of the space tower was darkrai standing on two 'legs' and looking over the garden.

The group was filled with joy at the sight of the thought to be dead Darkrai.

"Piplup!" the water type said with happiness.

"Darkrai" dawn said in equal happiness.

"Darkrai you're okay!" ash shouted with joy.

Misty just stood and smiled, both at Darkrai and at Ash's.

"Pika!" the electric type yelled for joy.

Alice was extremely happy at the return of darkrai, she then cuddled up lovingly to Tonio, a smile on her face.

Tonio on the other hand was surprised, he laughed sheepishly and looked at the sky nervously, a blush present on his face.

Darkrai looked over the group, it's eye glowed blue and sunk into the ground as a shadow.

_The hero of Alamos town was alive._

_The group was happy._

_The town was safe._

_And the fighting of two deities was stopped._

_This was the rise of Darkrai._

**And another chapter done, I really hope you enjoyed this chapter as I enjoyed writing it (done in one weekend).**

**Read and review and have a nice day.**

**Until next time.**


	9. Chapter 8: contest preperations

Rise of Darkrai: a pokèshipping story

**Hey guys, welcome back to my story. This is going to be one of the last chapters before I move onto my next Pokémon fic "Pokémon platinum". Anyway this chapter is going to be before the Alamos Town Pokémon contest. Just a little note, I have NEVER written a Pokémon contest before so I would like feedback on how to write a contest.**

**Also this is my first original chapter that isn't completely based off of the movie, so yay me.**

**Also, I am VERY SORRY that my procrastination got the better of me, also I am going into 10****th**** grade this year so updating will be very dependent on me, so expect a few breaks in writing.**

**Also update as of march, I originally planned this in one big chapter but I decided against it, it is going to be a multipart arc.**

**Anyway enough of that and into the story.**

"Speech"

'Thoughts'

"**Telepathy"**

([Name]'s POV)

"Speech" **(translation)**

%%%%% scene transition %%%%%

**(Disclaimer, I do not own Pokémon or any affiliated companies or products, if I did… oh you are probably sick of these jokes anyway)**

Chapter 8: contest preparations.

(Normal POV)

After the group had seen Darkrai mysteriously revived in the garden, the trainers Ash, Misty, Dawn and Brock returned to the Pokémon centre to go to sleep.

One person in the hospital wing was not sleeping, Paul, he was sitting up in a bed and was wearing a patient gown.

He had been treated for minor electrical burns and muscle soreness, he was recommended to rest for a few days to fully heal his injuries.

Mentally however, he was still in shock. He had died and revived by Oración, at any moment he could have stayed dead, his life over. That scared him.

Paul was not easily scared, in fact he had been called scary many times, but he had a fear of dying like anyone would and coming so close to death made him meditate over those events.

(Paul's POV)

I laid awake in my bed as I thought over the events of today, but one aspect of the day was stuck on my mind.

'Why did I save that troublesome girl?' I asked myself, "I never really helped anyone else in my life, so why did I save her?".

I thought about it for a few moments.

'Am I becoming soft?' I wondered, 'I could have easily saved myself but I got myself killed to save a girl who couldn't save herself'.

I heard the door to my room open, I turned to see the very girl I was thinking about standing there.

'Great' I thought sarcastically and sighed.

%%%%% minutes earlier %%%%%

(Dawn's POV)

I tossed and turned as I tried to get to sleep, I had not been able to get to sleep since this afternoon and the contest was tomorrow.

After many failed attempts at getting to sleep I decided to get up, I moved slowly as to not accidently wake up piplup who had slept with me.

'I better not wake them' I told myself.

I crept out of the room and closed the door behind me quietly and walked off down the corridor to the lobby.

As I sat down on the lounge in the lobby of the Pokémon centre I replayed the events that happened today.

Darkrai showed up again and the whole town gets taken to another dimension, Palkia and Dialga appear and begin fighting, Darkrai gets destroyed, we put Oración in the music panel and power it up and…

Paul got killed.

I sighed as I tried not to think about his brief death.

'He saved me' I thought, 'he saved me but could have easily not, why?' I wondered.

The memory of him pushing me out of the way and taking the bolt for me was still freshly burned in my mind.

'Maybe deep down he really does care for others, he just has… difficulties admitting it' I remembered Misty saying earlier.

'I suppose he does' I thought.

An idea popped into my head.

'I never thanked him for saving me, maybe I could see if he is awake so I can thank him' I said as I got up and walked to the hospital wing.

I looked for Paul's room throughout the wing and I saw him sitting up through the window of the room.

I opened the door to his room and was met with him looking at me.

"Hi" I said sheepishly.

"Aren't you supposed to be asleep?" he asked me with a hint of annoyance.

"Aren't you?" I countered.

He sighed in response, "Troublesome, what do you want?" he asked kind of rudely.

"First off, it's Dawn not 'troublesome', secondly I wanted to see if you were okay" I said to him, I was still annoyed at him not remembering me.

"I'm fine" he said in a somewhat stoic tone.

"That's good, considering…" I said with a pause, as he knew to what I was referring to.

"I don't need to be reminded" he said looking the other way.

We both waited in an awkward silence.

"Thanks, by the way…" I spoke.

He looked at me with a confused look.

"For saving me, I'm grateful for what you did and I'll repay the favour one day" I elaborated.

He looked slightly surprised at me.

"You're welcome" he spoke.

I felt like I achieved something when he said that, was he actually sincere?

"Now I need to rest" he said while he closed his eyes.

I decided I need to go back to bed anyway, the contest was tomorrow and I couldn't enter half asleep.

"Good night" I said as I left the room.

He grunted in response.

I made my way back to my room and got into bed quietly , I felt tired and I drifted into sleep.

%%%%% the next day %%%%%

(Normal POV)

In the morning after everyone had gotten ready for the day, Dawn immediately took Misty with her to the shops to find an outfit for the contest.

When they got there Dawn went through several aisles looking for a dress to wear, she ended up picking out a few and went to the changing room to try them on.

'She is a lot more energetic than yesterday' Misty thought with a smile, she had felt bad for the young coordinator after yesterday's events but she was glad to see her happy again.

"What do you think?" Dawn asked as she stepped out of the changing room.

She was wearing a green button up suit shirt with purple accents on the cuffs and at the bottom of the shirt as well as a ribbon on the right chest of her shirt. She was not wearing her white beanie and her long blue hair was held together by her gold barrette clips. She wore red dress shoes.

Misty examined the outfit for a moment, "I don't think it suits you" she said simply.

"I was worried about that, thanks for helping me pick out an outfit. I don't think I would be able to do it myself with all that has went on, the stress would get to me" Dawn admitted.

"No problem, I'm glad I could help" Misty replied.

Dawn went back into the changing room and put on another outfit.

"I talked to Paul last night" dawn said through the changing room door.

That got Misty's attention.

"When did you get the time to do that?" Misty asked curiously.

"when you were all sleeping, I couldn't sleep because I still felt guilty about yesterday" she said, the tone of her voice sounded sheepish.

"you do know it wasn't your fault? You couldn't have known it would happen" Misty reassured her.

"I know, it's just… I needed it off my chest" she replied.

"so what happened?" Misty asked expectantly.

"I went to see if he was awake, and I thanked him for what he did yesterday. The weird thing is that he was so sincere when he said 'you're welcome'" Dawn explained.

"I told you he cared, not much, but he does" Misty told dawn.

Dawn couldn't help but chuckle at that comment as she opened the door to reveal her second choice of outfits.

It was a Chinese style dress that had open legs on the sides, it was decorated in rose stitches and a piplup on the bottom of the dress near the ankles. She was wearing a green and red striped beanie that had a black brim around the head, it also had two red plush spheres on antennae.

She did a few poses to give misty a good look at the dress.

"I like it, but it seems I think that it would be better suited for a ball dance and not for contests… that's just my opinion" Misty gave her critique.

"I guess you are right, I does look good though" Dawn said.

She went in to change again.

"So misty, what is it like having sisters?" Dawn asked in curiousness

"Oh, it can be a pain sometimes, the reason I met ash is because I was fed up with my sisters and left cerulean city" Misty explained.

"Why were you fed up?" Dawn asked.

"Because back then all they talked about were their glamour and constantly teased me about not being pretty enough to be one of the sensational sisters. So one day I just left to become a water type master" Misty told her story.

Misty sighed.

"But I still love them, I had to stay in Kanto after Ash finished his journey in johto because my sisters went on a world tour, I was angry at them for a while about it" Misty began, "but when they returned I began to get along with them a bit more and they teased me less, they became bearable" she finished.

"It sounds rough, but if they love you back I guess it's all worth it" Dawn commented.

"That sounds poetic" Misty pointed out.

"Well I do like poetry, especially professor oak's poems, I guess it rubbed off on me" Dawn admitted.

They both laughed a little bit.

"I'm ready" she came out to show misty.

She was wearing a pink dress, it was stunning. It had frills at the bottom of the skirt and at the shoulders, it was decorated with a few draped fabric strips at the waist and had a rose design in the middle. She wore a pink bandana that was decorated with a bow at the back and a rose at the front.

"Wow, Dawn you look amazing" Misty complimented.

Dawn blushed with embarrassment, "Thank you, I appreciate it".

"I think you should use it in the contest" Misty suggested to her.

"I agree, how much does it cost?" Dawn asked.

Misty read the price tag, "fifty pokèdollars" she said.

Dawn groaned a little bit, it seemed she was annoyed.

"What's wrong?" Misty asked.

"I just remembered that I spend most of my money on that fake Cressilia feather, I can't buy it" she said sadly.

'That thief' Misty thought bitterly.

"I'll buy it for you" Misty said with a smile.

"I don't want to burden you" Dawn denied , even if she really wanted the dress.

"Don't worry, there are perks to being a gym leader, one being that you have a steady income" Misty said as she pulled out 50 pokèdollars from her bag.

"are you sure?" Dawn said uncertainly.

"yeah, I don't mind" she replied, "besides, I don't want to see you go to the contest unprepared" she spoke sympathetically.

Dawn hugged misty, "Thank you!" she said cheerily and went to the reception to wait for misty.

"No problem" Misty said with a smile.

%%%%% in a café in town %%%%%

Alice was showing everyone around the rest of the town, they had stopped in a café that Alice liked, it was called the 'garden rose' named after Godey's garden.

"So what do you plan to do after the contest?" Alice asked Brock and Ash, who were enjoying some tea paid for by Alice, as a thank you for their services during the crisis.

"I plan on travelling to Hearthome city and challenging the gym leader, then the rest of the Sinnoh league" Ash said excitedly taking a sip from his tea.

"I'm travelling with him because he would probably be dead without me" Brock said, jokingly.

"I would not" Ash grumbled a little bit, also jokingly.

"Remember in Hoenn, when you, May and Max forgot to pack lunch, if I hadn't had showed up you would have starved" Brock reminisced.

"I would have been fine" Ash protested, pouting.

Brock just shook his head with a smile.

"Where exactly have you two been?" Alice asked, curious about their history.

"We both met each other in our home region, Kanto. I challenged the pewter gym, which Brock happened to be the gym leader of. After Brock's dad returned to take position as gym leader he travelled with me and Misty through Kanto and johto. He travelled with me, May and Max in Hoenn and through Kanto again for the battle frontier. And here we are again in the Sinnoh region, with Dawn and surprisingly Misty" Ash gave a brief summary of his travels.

"Pika" Pikachu spoke up, as if to say 'aren't you forgetting someone?'.

"Oh, sorry Pikachu, I travelled with pikachu through all the regions, he was my first Pokémon" Ash explained

"Wow, I guess you three must be close friends to be able to travel the world together" Alice was impressed.

"Yeah, we're like brothers by now" Brock said.

"I guess you have six brothers now" Ash pointed out.

"Pika" pikachu said.

"Seven" Ash corrected.

"How many siblings do you have?" Alice asked.

"I'm an only child" Ash said with a smile.

"I guess you seem content with being an only child" Alice observed curiously.

"just wait until you hear how many siblings Brock has" Ash said with a ready smile.

"How many?" Alice asked.

'It can't be too many' she thought.

"Nine, five brothers and four sisters. All of them younger than me" Brock told her.

Alice's jaw dropped, "nine brothers and sisters!" she was surprised by this.

"Yeah that's right, it can be a handful but it's definitely nice having a big family" Brock answered her.

"I couldn't even imagine" she chuckled, her chimchar joined in as well.

Alice looked at the time on the clock in the café.

"Well it is almost time for the contest, Dawn and Misty should be done by now" Alice said as she picked up her empty cup of and placed it in the bin.

The others did the same as they left the café and headed for the contest hall where the two groups agreed to meet up.

%%%%% outside the towers %%%%%

Alice and the others were waiting outside of the contest hall waiting for Dawn and Misty to show up.

"hey Alice" a familiar voice called out to the group.

"hey Tonio, so you finally got out of the lab" Alice greeted her friend, now partner, Tonio.

"I wouldn't miss something like this, besides after what happened these last few days I could use a break" Tonio said jokingly.

"That's saying something" Alice admitted with a small laugh.

"I wonder what's taking them so long?" Ash thought out loud.

"they'll be here soon" Brock told him.

As soon as he said that Dawn and Misty appeared down the street.

"Hey guys!" Dawn cheerily exclaimed as she did a slight jog down to the group, misty following her lead.

"Well I can tell your excited for the contest" Ash noted.

"Excited is not a strong enough word" Dawn told him.

Ash cracked a smile upon hearing this, it reminded him of whenever he enters a gym battle.

"Misty even helped me pick out a dress for it" she continued, giving a little praise to the gym leader.

"Wow Misty, I didn't know you had a sense of fashion" Ash teased her a little.

"Excuse you, I happen to have great fashion sense" Misty retorted.

"Just like on scissor street" ash poked fun at her.

"I was young!" she told him with an embarrassed blush on her face.

"I mean, what about when you cross dressed as a girl to get into Erika's gym" she said as she grinned a sly grin.

It was ash's turn to blush, and he did so.

"That's not fair!" he said embarrassed.

"Is too!" She said

"Is not!" Ash exclaimed.

"Guys please!" Brock said getting in between them.

"Today is supposed to be about the contest, not some petty argument" Brock reasoned.

"Yeah, you two flirt on your own time" Dawn poked fun at the both of them.

Ash and Misty were blushing furiously at this comment.

"We are not flirting!" they exclaimed to the young coordinator.

"Then stop arguing like it" Dawn asked them, sly face and all.

"Fine" they both conceded.

"Anyway, we should head in and get you registered" Tonio said to Dawn, as he decided to move on from the little scene.

"Right!" she nodded and began to walk to the towers.

Others walked along with them, Ash and Misty further behind.

Misty had felt guilty for the words she spoke to Ash, due to what Paul had told her the previous day.

%%%%% flashback %%%%%

"You didn't have to be so rude!" she spat with venom.

"Why do you care?" he said calmly.

"Because I don't like it when people insult my friends" she said lowly.

"You insulted him yourself" Paul said pointing out her contradiction.

%%%%% end %%%%%

'Am I hurting ash like Paul did?' she wondered.

"Ash?" she spoke to him, slightly soft.

"Yeah?" Ash answered her.

"Am I hurting you?… When I tease you I mean" Misty asked him.

"Sometimes.. but I know you don't mean it" ash told her.

"why do you ask?" he questioned, curious.

"It's just… you know when Paul insulted you, when you suggested to throw the disc" Misty said, she looked a bit sad bringing it up.

"Yeah, I remember" he looked solemn when he said it.

"I agreed with him, he pointed out when I got angry at him for insulting you like he did, that I had done the same as him" Misty looked down in guilt.

"Misty… don't listen to him, he doesn't know what he's saying" he smiled to her.

"Huh?" Misty was surprised by his words.

"Paul actually tries to hurt me when he insults me, you insult me because I usually do it first. It is just something we do" he explained.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"We argue, but we do it because it's our thing, we do it because… we're friends" he said with a genuine smile.

Misty looked at him for a few moments, she had always liked how no matter how bad something is he always tried to make it better, he was so selfless putting others before himself.

She blushed and smiled at him, "thanks for that" she said with gratitude.

"No problem" he said like it was nothing.

They walked on to the contest hall as Dawn got registered for the contest.

The contest would begin soon and the whole town would be watching.

'Who would come out on top?' was the question on everybody's mind.

Dawn stood waiting for the contest to start, her heart welling in anticipation.

"I'm going to win this!" she said to herself, trying to boost her confidence.

Little did she know, everyone else had the same idea.

**And that's a wrap, thank goodness!**

**Again I apologise for my tardiness, more than 6 months, geez!**

**Anyway this contest is about to get underway, and I hope you guys can help me if you can because I have no idea how to write a contest.**

**Read and review and, of course, get ready for the next chapter.**


	10. Chapter 9: Appeals round

Rise of Darkrai: a Pokèshipping story

**Hey guys and welcome to the beginning of the Alamos town Pokémon contest, I hope you enjoy it!**

**ALSO HAPPY NEW YEARS EVERYONE (belated but still)**

**Again still sorry about the previous chapter I hope you can forgive me for that and this chapter as well.**

"Speech"

'Thoughts'

"**Telepathy"**

([Name]'s POV)

"Speech"** (translation)**

%%%%% scene transition %%%%%

**(Disclaimer, I do not own Pokémon or any affiliated companies/products, if I did I would be fired for my lapse in creativity)**

Chapter 9: Appeals round

(Normal POV)

The contest hall was filled with a volume of sheer magnitude as the Alamos Town Pokémon contest was about to begin, there were thousands of audience members attending the event and all of them were anxious for the contest to start.

"Wow, the audience is huge!" Ash said in wonder as his friends and he found their seats.

"Pika!" Pikachu stared in wonderment.

"It almost looks as big as one of the grand festivals" Brock drew comparison.

"Being a tourist location, Alamos town has many people travel here to witness the contests that are held here" Tonio explained.

"I still didn't expect it to be this big" Misty thought aloud.

"A little overwhelming isn't it" Alice said to Misty with a small smile on her face.

"More surprising really because I've seen bigger crowds, like the one at the Silver Conference in Johto a few years back" Misty shrugged it off.

"Yeah that was a pretty big crowd" Ash said.

The crowd was beginning to quiet down as the contest announcer Marian made her way on stage, she wore a predominately yellow sleeveless long coat with darker yellow accents, it showed a small amount of midriff and had a stretched out collar. Underneath she wore a pink mini-skirt matching her pink leg attire and sandals. She had a purple choker necklace on and a purple head band that sat in her curly orange-brown hair.

"Ladies and gentlemen, people and Pokémon, welcome to the Alamos town Pokémon contest!" Marian began her introductions, she was very charismatic.

"The last few days have been very stressful for everyone and we almost considered canceling the contest, but everything is back to normal and show will go on as planned!" she continued as the crowd roared in anticipation.

She held up the Alamos town contest ribbon, it was red with yellow outlines and had an emblem on the centerpiece which detailed the space-time towers in red and blue.

"The winner of this contest will be rewarded with this ribbon and will be one step closer to entering the grand festival, the contest is a singles format in which you will start in the appeals round and the top eight will advance into the tournament" she detailed the specifics of the contest layout system.

"I am your host Marian and a few words will be given by our judges panel" she started the introductions.

"Mr. Contesta!" she introduced a middle-aged man, he wore a red suit and black bowtie, his hair was light black with grey stripes along the top and sides.

"Greetings, I hope for a very exciting performance from all the contestants as much as you do" he said kindly.

"Mr. Suziko!" Marian announced a short man with a chubby face, his eyes seemed to be closed and he wore a smile.

"Alamos town is a remarkable place" he said simply for he was a man of very few words.

"And our resident Nurse Joy!" she introduced the young Nurse.

"It's a pleasure to be here, and I wish the best of luck to all the coordinators in this contest" she seemed excited.

"Now with that out of the way it's time for the show to start!" Marian boosted the Crowds excitement as the noise almost overpowered the MC's voice.

"This crowd is really fired up" Ash noted.

"After these last few days, who can blame them?" Brock asked rhetorically.

"I wonder how Dawn is doing" Misty wondered, concerned for the young trainers nerves.

"Dawn may be a new trainer but she is very confident, a big crowd like this may be a little intimidating" Brock pointed out.

"I'm sure she'll be fine, she usually is with other contests and they have big crowds too" Ash said, he seemed to trust that she won't succumb to nervousness.

%%%%% in the waiting room %%%%%

Dawn was getting eaten up by nervousness, although it wasn't her first time in contests she was nervous because she didn't want to disappoint the judges and not make it past the appeals round.

'Calm down, you'll be fine' she reassured herself.

Putting on a smile Dawn pushed away any nervous thoughts she had, she was definitely going to win this and then the grand festival.

"Are you nervous?" a voice startled the bluenette out of her thoughts.

"Eep! Oh it's just you, you scared me" Dawn grinned in embarrassment, rubbing the back of her head.

The red headed Allegra was standing behind the young coordinator. She wore a cool outfit that consisted of a yellow Japanese style shirt that looked like a karate gi, along with a pair of short skin tight black pants and black boots.

"Sorry, how are you holding up?" Allegra apologized.

"I'm fine, just a little tense, but that's nothing" Dawn answered confidently.

"It always is tense just before the appeals, believe me I've had my fair share of contest performances and I still get nervous" she smiled in understanding.

"How long have you been coordinating?" Dawn wondered.

"A bit under two years, I've only gotten to participate in one grand festival" Allegra explained.

"Really? What's it like?" Dawn curiously asked.

"Much more nerve-racking than this, that's for sure" she answered with a small chuckle.

"What about you? I'm guessing you're new because you still have a Piplup" Allegra inquired.

"Yeah, I only became a trainer two months ago. I left twinleaf town and got Piplup from professor Rowen after I helped him with some trouble at the lab" Dawn gave a brief explanation.

"I started with my Infernape as a Chimchar from Snowpoint city, my hometown" Allegra told her.

"Oh hey, the contest is about to start" Allegra pointed out and turned to the TV screen to see who was to go first.

The screen showed the order in which the contestants were to enter, first up was Allegra and Dawn were further down the list, number 32.

And Allegra's performance was about to start.

"Crap! Sorry I can't stay and chat, good luck in your appeals performance!" Allegra said hurriedly as she ran off to the entry gate to the stage.

"You too!" Dawn waved to her as she ran.

"That girl is way too easily distracted" a male voice remarked, it was Kai.

"I'll say" Maury agreed.

The two of them were dressed in different outfits than their regular clothes, as per Sinnoh contest tradition. Maury was dressed in green dress pants and red long-sleeved shirt, he also wore a gray cape that started at the chest and led to the back.

Kai's outfit was very different to what many other coordinators were wearing, a purple Egyptian-esque chest piece and white dress that went down to the ankles, and he wore sandals as well.

"Hey guys" Dawn greeted them.

"Hi Dawn" Maury said politely.

"Hey" Kai waved.

They the three of them turned to watch the monitor for Allegra's performance, all eager to see how she goes.

%%%%% on stage %%%%%

"And to start us off is Allegra from Snowpoint city!" Marian introduced the young girl to the audience.

She walked out, calmly and coolly. She was definitely confident.

"There's Allegra" Ash pointed out.

"She looks cool" Misty said in an impressed tone.

"She looks beautiful!" Brock fawned over the young woman.

"Cool it, mister!" Misty gave his ear a quick tug, to keep him from running on stage.

"I'll be good" he moaned from pain.

Tonio and Alice just shared a small laugh at his antics.

Back on stage Allegra was ready to release her Pokémon.

"Give it your best! Honchkrow!" she called the big boss Pokémon to the stage.

The pokèball had a party seal on it from which the resulting release caused a bunch of illusionary confetti to burst from where Honchkrow had been released.

The audience had a positive reaction to the seal, they enjoyed the display.

"Honchkrow, use haze!" she commanded the dark type.

It opened its mouth to release a large volume of dark smog.

The blackness covered the stage making the arena impossible to see, very mysterious.

"Now use defog just like we practiced" she told the big boss Pokémon.

It did so with a well-choreographed dance of its wings, it circled the haze in a counter-clockwise fashion. In doing so the blackness began to gain speed and spin, the result being a vortex of dark cloud spinning quickly.

The audience was impressed with it, an eruption of "ooh's" and "ah's" in response to the tornado of cloudy haze.

Allegra smiled in pride, 'well done, better than ever' she mentally gave the Pokémon praise.

"Whirlwind, lift it off the ground!"

A graceful flap of the wings caused a strong updraft that caused the vortex to lose its tornado shape and change into a rotating black cloud of haze. The new form looked more like an eyeless hurricane than anything else.

"Fire a Shadow ball, and then use sky attack!" she called in quick succession.

A purple and black ball of dark, shadowy energy formed at the dual-type's beak and it was fired slowly into the swirling cloud of ominous dust particles.

It then began be cloaked in a blinding glow of white light, the Pokémon sped towards the Shadow ball, keeping a bit of distance behind it.

"Finish it with a bang!" she said with a grin.

At the exact moment the Shadow ball hit the centre of the rotating cloud the Big Boss Pokémon collided with the sphere of ghostly energy, causing the clouds to disperse outwards in a fine rain of sparkles and the still shining Honchkrow in the middle.

The display had dissipated but the crowds excitement had only kept increasing as there were deafening cheers and whistles that all gave Allegra praise, as well as a loud round of applause. It was a strong opening act to the contest.

Allegra did a bow and so did the Honchkrow, they were perfect in synchronization.

"Wow that was amazing!" Ash said in awe.

"Pika!" Pikachu agreed with the same impressed tone.

"What an interesting combination of moves, I could only wonder how long it took to rehearse that performance" Brock smiled, showing respect for her dedication.

"It must have taken a while to get it right, it certainly doesn't look like something you'd get right first try" Misty guessed.

Tonio and Alice said nothing but clapped along with the crowd, they were pleased by the performance.

The judges began to make their comments on the young lady's performance.

"The way you combined those moves really showed off the versatility of your Pokémon's abilities, very well done" Mr. Contesta complimented her performance.

"That display was remarkable" Mr. Suziko briefly said, an impressed smile on his lips.

"The synchronization between you and your Pokémon, as well as the choreography of the way Honchkrow performed its moves really showed off the effort you put into it" Nurse Joy said kindly.

Allegra did a final bow to the judges and walked back to the waiting room, Honchkrow following behind her.

%%%%% in the waiting room %%%%%

Dawn and the others had watched the entire thing from the monitors and they, like the crowd, were impressed by her performance.

'She really wasn't kidding when she said she had been coordinating for two years, her performance was so good. How am I going to top that?' Dawn worried, impressed but intimidated by the strong reaction Allegra got from the crowd.

"Hey guys" Allegra said in a cheery voice.

"I don't think that was particularly fair" Maury spoke to her, a slight chuckle in his voice.

Allegra was as confused as Dawn was in reaction to that statement.

"What do you mean?" Allegra squinted at him, suspicious of his choice of words.

"I mean that was one of your best performances yet, but I think it's putting a lot of pressure on the less experienced coordinators" he gave his opinion, although a somewhat humorous tone betrayed his statement.

"Hey! You don't know that, there could be many people here who could outdo my performance. You think too highly of me" she said in modesty.

"She's right, plus you saying that sort of makes you seem self-righteous" Kai pointed out, a knowing smile on his face.

"I am not! I'm just concerned for the other contestants" he said, again his joking tone betrayed his meaning.

"I'll be fine if that's what you're thinking" Dawn assured Maury, surprised he would be the type to say something like that.

He seemed so quiet.

'I guess you really can't judge a book by its cover' Dawn mused.

"Yeah, besides it's just a contest, there'll be plenty more before the grand festival they'll have plenty of chances even if they don't win" Allegra stated.

"Maybe so, try not to go too overboard on your performances" he said, a witty choice of words.

"Why? Scared you won't make it past the first round if you face me?" a competitive vibe coming from her.

"You wish, didn't you just say that I think too highly of you, but say you'll be facing me in the next round?" he pointed out.

"I said there could be better performances than mine, I didn't say I wasn't likely to make it into the next round, not after all of the hard work Honchkrow and I went through" she corrected him.

They continued on for about a minute, a minute of banter between friends.

Dawn laughed a little at their little exchange, lightening the tenseness of the contest. It also reminded her of a certain two trainers who bickered constantly.

"You know, Maury didn't really mean what he said, he just does it as a way to relieve tension. Allegra always reacts to him and that causes them continue this… I guess you could call it a comedy routine" Kai said to Dawn so the others didn't hear, chuckling a bit.

"I noticed" Dawn gave a smile, she found it very amusing.

It definitely seemed to relieve tension, she felt less nervous about her performance.

"You make it seem like you can do a better performance than me" Allegra questioned.

"I know I can do a better performance, just you see" he replied

"I think that's enough for now, I think it might be Maury's turn soon" Kai said, he was right too as Maury was 4th on the list.

"I guess it is, shame we can't continue this" Maury said in mock-disappointment.

"Yeah, go on. I expect an actual performance to back up those words" Allegra grinned cheekily.

"Whatever, I'll see you guys soon" he said nonchalantly.

"Good luck" Dawn said to him.

He walked off to the stage gate and waited for his turn, he had a few more minutes to wait.

A few moments of silence…

"Damn, he got me again" Allegra face palmed in annoyance.

"You just noticed?" Kai asked.

"Oh, quiet you. I know he always does it but I was on guard this time" Allegra whined.

Kai just shook his head in amusement.

Allegra sighed, "Anyway, how many contests have you participated in?" she addressed Dawn.

"Three, my first was in Jubilife city" she replied.

"That wasn't too long ago…" Allegra said before being pulled into a train of thought.

Then something clicked.

"I just remembered that I saw you compete, you were facing off against my sister when she was competing" she realized.

"… wait, you do you mean Zoey" Dawn said in surprise.

"Yeah, that's her" Allegra smiled.

"Wow, I didn't know she had a sister… I'm actually friends with her, rival too" Dawn explained with a big smile.

'So little sis has a rival now' Allegra thought with amusement.

"Maybe the next time we meet you, sis and I could all compete in a contest" Allegra suggested.

"Which contest are you headed to after this? It might be possible" Dawn wondered.

"I won't happen soon, Zoey is headed to Hearthome city, and I'm headed the other way" Allegra informed her with disappointment.

"Oh, well hopefully we'll all get together one day" Dawn said optimistically.

"Yeah, one day" Allegra agreed.

"Hey, Maury's performance is starting" Kai informed them.

"Let's see what this smarta…" Allegra paused, "Alec, has to offer" she finished.

'Good save' Allegra mentally sighed in relief.

Dawn noticed that Allegra stopped herself from cursing, but didn't pursue it.

%%%%% on stage %%%%%

"Now please welcome Maury!" Marian announced excitedly to the hyped crowd.

He walked out calmly, Pokèball in hand. He did a bow before releasing his Pokémon.

"Go, Cherrim!"

The blossom Pokémon was released with a flora seal, purple petals began to shower around the Pokémon as it hopped around.

A collection of ooh's and ah's emanated from the crowd showing that they seemed to think the seal suited the Pokémon well.

"Use Sunny Day!" he commanded.

The Grass Type made its petals glow brightly and fired an orb of blinding white light, the orb looking like a miniature sun as it floated in the air above the arena.

The bright light cause Cherrim's body to undergo a transformation, changing from the darker hued Pokémon that had its body covered by petals to a pink and yellow Pokémon that looked like a cherry blossom. It began dancing in the sun.

A large harmony of aw's echoed from the audience, the Blossom Pokémon's new form was very cute.

"Petal Dance!" he called out.

Pink petals began to flow from the Grass Type's head and it began to spin as it danced around with a downpour of petals.

"Lucky Chant!"

"Cher, Cher, Cherrim!" the Pokémon sang merrily as it released streams of purple light from its mouth, the petals that came into contact with the light glowed and dispelled into luminescent powder that sparkled in the false sunlight.

As the petals began to dissipate Cherrim slowed down and moved directly under the sun.

"Absorb the light Cherrim!" Maury said specifically.

And it did, the sun falling down on Cherrim as its body glowed with a brilliant shine.

"Now, use Petal Blizzard!"

A long second passed before Cherrim exploded in a swarm of blue petals, all expanding outwards in a magnificent display of light. Cherrim had transformed back to its overcast form.

The crowd roared as the petals began to calm and litter the stage in a blanket of pink.

As the crowd quietened, the judges prepared to give they're review on Maury's performance.

"A terrific performance that showed a great degree of finesse and precision, very well done" Mr. Contesta praised the act.

"Remarkable" Mr. Suziko nodded.

"The moves that your Cherrim had shown us gave the impression of a dance, smoothly and skillfully executed" Nurse Joy complimented.

Maury just nodded his head in respect and walked off stage.

%%%%% backstage %%%%%

Dawn had watched the intently, she was awestruck by Cherrim's performance.

"Heh, showoff" Allegra scoffed lightly.

"Only because his performance is on par with yours" Kai said reasonably.

"Just under mine at best" she said in compromise.

"I think both your performances were great, I can't tell whose was better" Dawn added.

'Probably better than mine' she added mentally and somewhat pessimistically, she shook these thoughts from her head.

'I can't be thinking about the negatives, just keep looking forward' she told herself.

"Thanks, I'm sure you'll do great too, just wait and see" Allegra encouraged her.

Just then Maury had returned.

"So, what'd you think?" he asked the group.

"Allegra was just saying how you performance was just as good as yours" Kai said, trying to start another round of banter.

"Oh no, I'm not letting you pull me in to this again" Allegra said defiantly.

"Just as good as yours huh?" Maury prodded.

"Well, enough to reach the next round" she said smugly.

She shook her head in annoyance when she realized she had been drawn into it again.

"Ok, not listening, going to talk with Dawn now" she said clearly to them, ignoring them.

The two guys just shared a small laugh at her expense.

"Honestly, so immature" she grumbled to herself.

Dawn just looked at the group with an amused expression.

'They really are close friends' she smiled in happiness for them, she liked seeing people bond. And so for the next thirty minutes when they weren't watching the performances they spent time chatting, learning about one another and becoming friends.

Soon enough it was now Dawn's turn to perform.

"Good luck" Allegra told the bluenette as she left for the stage.

Dawn smiled and nodded with determination.

'Let's give them a performance to remember' she thought with steely resolve and a pokèball in her hand.

%%%%% in the crowd %%%%%

"It's Dawn's turn soon so let's really cheer her on this time" Ash spoke to his friends, even more so to Pikachu.

"Pika!" the yellow mouse agreed fiercely.

"Even in contests you still get hyped up, don't you?" Misty pointed out with a good-humored smile.

"Of course, she cheers me on in my battles so I have to at least do the same" Ash reasoned.

"Except dress up like a cheer leader" Brock added.

"Definitely not" Ash chuckled a bit.

This actually got a laugh from the whole group, Misty too.

'I guess some things just don't change' she thought fondly, contradicting her words from yesterday.

"_Well people change Ash, even the most stubborn of us" _

'But you don't ever change do you?' she wondered.

'Please don't change…' Misty thought with a smile.

'That sounds like a cheesy romantic one liner' she lightly criticized her choice of words.

(Misty's POV)

I took a moment to realize what I just thought.

…

A blush lit up my cheeks with a burning heat.

'N-n-not like that, that isn't what I meant when I thought that' I denied in full force.

The warm sensation didn't disappear when I denied it though.

'Stupid brain, thinking impossible scenarios at inappropriate time' she criticized her mind for thinking of such things.

"Are you okay?" a voice pulled my from my inner dilemma, it was Alice.

"Y-yeah I'm fine" I stuttered out.

'Real convincing' I sarcastically thought inwardly.

"Okay then" Alice said but she didn't seem too sure.

I shook my head and stayed focused on the stage, if anything Dawn's performance should help me forget this moment.

"I'm sure she'll make it into the battle rounds" I said out loud, with honest excitement too.

"That's the spirit" Ash encouraged me, you could hear the anticipation in his voice.

I smiled and waited for the show to begin.

%%%%% on stage %%%%%

"It's time to welcome our next contestant, Dawn!" Marian exclaimed to the sound of the thunderous crowd.

Dawn walked out with a look of sureness on her face and had her pokèball at the ready.

She could hear her friend's voices cheering her on over the white noise of the crowd, boosting her already peaking confidence.

"Buizel, spotlight!" she called out the water type with a fire seal on the ball.

The fire seal caused a rotating sphere of blue fire to surround and expel outwards, similar supernova lighting up the depths of space. The seal was a cool contrast to the Pokémon's type which caused the audience to become invested in the performance.

"Now Buizel use water gun on the ground!" she commanded.

Buizel fired a blast of water from his mouth, causing a ripple effect on the ground as well as forcing Buizel into the air. The Sea Weasel Pokémon was well above the stage and was beginning to slow its accent.

"Now use sonic boom!"

The water type spun around in the air and used its split tail to create a supersonic pressure wave that move toward the water and collided with it, causing the water to be pushed into the air in little droplets. The recoil pushed Buizel a few metres higher.

"Great work, now use swift!" she complimented Buizel.

And Buizel did so, spinning its tail to produce a large number of starts that were made of light. The starts followed a path through the suspended droplet and shattered them on impact, creating a drizzle of sparkling light that showered the stadium in a brilliant display of radiance.

"Whoa, when did Buizel learn swift?" Ash wondered, impressed and confused.

"It learned it this morning when I was helping Dawn prepare for the contest, she worked the move in perfectly on such short time constraints" Misty explained, relieved that Dawn made the move work.

"Good thing it did, because Buizel only knew water gun, aqua jet and sonic boom which isn't a big pool to create performances with" Brock pointed out.

"I'm more surprised that she could work a newly learned move into a routine in so little time, it just goes to show how strong her determination is" Tonio spoke up for the first time in a while, he just watched on earlier and enjoyed the show with Alice.

"I couldn't even learn a song that quickly, I'm sure she'll make it to the Grand Festival with that creative talent no doubt about it" Alice added with a warm smile.

Buizel finally landed on the ground and stayed in a bowing pose before finishing the act, when it did the spectators showed their enjoyment in a roar of ovation.

It was the judges turn to review her performance.

"An impressive and unique performance that displayed the creativeness that you and Buizel have to perform an act like that" Mr. Contesta praised her.

"Simply remarkable" Mr. Suziko said in approval.

"Using Sonic Boom like that to raise the water is something I wouldn't have thought of and is very imaginative and the finale was dazzling" Nurse Joy expressed her enjoyment of the performance.

Dawn curtsied and returned Buizel to his pokèball and walked backstage.

"You did a great job Buizel" she congratulated the water type through the pokèball.

She continued her way back with a content smile on her face and was sure that she would advance to the battle rounds even with a performance essentially made up on the fly, even if the lack of planning gave her a few doubts.

'You'll be fine, the judges thought it was great so there's no need to worry' she convinced herself, keeping composed.

%%%%% backstage %%%%%

Dawn walked back to the waiting room and she had noticed some things she hadn't before, like the coordinators doing last minute touch ups on their appearance, checking their pokèballs, pacing nervously, sitting with an air of confidence, talking to friends, arguing with enemies and so on. It made her wonder why she didn't notice these before.

'Probably because I was busy talking with Allegra and the others' she theorized, after all these seemed like very mundane things to notice.

"That was a pretty neat performance out there, I knew you had a knack for contests" she was met with praise from Allegra, snapping her out of her distracted thoughts.

"Thanks" Dawn said with gratitude, happy to see that others thought well of her performance.

"Now the only one of us left to have their turn is Kai, which is 3 more appeals left" Allegra reminded her.

"Isn't he the last of the coordinators in the appeals round?" Dawn asked.

"Yeah, and let me tell you it ain't a position I'm envious of" she informed her.

"That's because of all the pressure, isn't it?" Dawn guessed.

"You're the last one on stage for the appeals, and you are out there wondering if the final performance will be lackluster or something else. It really messes with your skills if you can't handle pressure too well" Allegra gave an explanation, probably talking from experience too.

"Hmm" Dawn agreed.

"But don't worry, Kai's an ice cube when it comes to keeping his cool so I wouldn't worry about him" Allegra brushed it off.

"Let's just hope he doesn't crack" Maury joked.

Allegra visibly cringed at the joke, she wasn't a fan of puns.

"Dammit Maury" she groaned.

Dawn giggled at the terrible joke.

"No! Don't encourage him because once he starts making puns…" Allegra warned her.

"He. Never. Stops" she punctuated for emphasis.

"She's not wrong" Maury admitted.

"Please… just don't" Allegra stated.

"Why so downbeat? You usually so allegro" he impishly smiled.

"And there starts my spiral into madness" Allegra just sighed in annoyance.

Dawn rolled her eyes at Maury's antics and instead went over to Kai, he was sitting down just watching the performances through the monitor.

"Those two drive you mad yet?" Kai asked.

"No, not yet" she smiled.

"Your performance was good. I mean if I were a judge I'd probably choose you to go onto the next round" Kai spoke kindly.

"In all honestly I want to see what you do for your appeal, I've only seen you in battle" Dawn confessed.

"Well you'll just have to wait and see… speaking of which, it seems like it'll take forever until it's my turn" Kai said impatiently.

"I'm sure it won't be that long" Dawn smiled.

"Maybe not" he mused.

A jump on the seat shifted Dawn's attention to Allegra who had just popped down next to her.

"Why'd you have to leave me with him?" Allegra said in mock betrayal.

"Is he still making puns?" Dawn questioned.

"Well… for now he's not" she said with a mischievous smile.

The sight that Dawn saw was one that was in-between surprising and humorous. What she saw was Maury with a substance covering his mouth and an unimpressed look on his face, arms crossed as well.

"What is that?" Dawn said between stifled laughter.

"Web from my Ariados" Allegra answered simply.

"And you say we're immature" Kai deadpanned.

Maury gestured his hands and muffled his voice in a way that said "exactly".

"You deserved it so now you're gonna stay like that for a few more minutes and maybe I'll remove it for you afterwards" Allegra suggested.

A muffled 'fine' was all she got as he sat himself down.

"Well it looks like it's my turn, see you in a few" Kai said as he got up and left.

"Break a leg!" Allegra cheered for him.

"Good luck" Dawn encouraged him.

A muffled sound of Maury's was all that was heard.

%%%%% on stage %%%%%

"Our next and final contestant is Kai!" Marian gave a final announcement to the crowd who had been anticipating this.

Kai had entered the arena with a composed look, he looked ready.

"Empoleon, Let's go!" He said as he released the Emperor Pokémon.

The Pokèball it was stored in had a Star seal on it which caused a collection of lights to form around the water-steel type and create yellow starts that exploded into sparkles.

This caused the crowd to cheer, a good first impression.

"Use Ice Beam!" he gave the order.

As it was told it charged the blue, cold and lightning-esque beam into the middle of the stage. It continued as the ice began to build upwards in a crude prism shape until it was at least three stories tall.

"Now use Drill Peck and Steel Wing at the same time, work around the ice" Kai instructed specifically.

The wings on Empoleon began to glow brightly with a slightly metallic look and began to spin in a corkscrew fashion into the ice, said ice broke apart easily as if it was hit with a hammer. The ice began to take shape after Empoleon made a few rotations around the cold structure, and the shape it took was that of a Pokémon.

"Put some more detail into it, make it smoother!" Kai gave detail to his commands.

It was at that moment when the ice truly began to take shape in the form of a large Empoleon with its wings crossed in front of its chest, a lot of effort was put into it and whenever there were inconsistencies in the design Kai pointed them out and corrected them.

"And now finish!" Kai ordered.

Empoleon finished by standing in front of the sculpture, facing it with the same pose, and launching at it with a Drill Peck that shattered it to pieces. The force of the impact caused the pieces to break into small water particles that reflected the light from above the stadium into a rainbow.

Needless to say the crowd was very impressed by the act, a strong finish to the appeals round.

"A fantastic combination of skill and artistry, another fine performance" Mr. Contesta was impressed.

"Remarkable" Mr. Suziko praised the act.

"The thing that stood out to me the most was your unmistaken communication and precision in making the sculpture, a true example of teamwork on both parts" Nurse Joy pointed out with a smile.

"Empoleon return" he said as the dual type went back into its pokèball.

Kai bowed to the judges and made his way off stage.

"and that does it folks for the appeals round and for the next 10 minutes the judges will choose 8 coordinators to move onto the battle round" Marian announced to the audience.

Those in the audience took the next ten minutes to buy any food that was available or just walk around for a few minutes before the battle round competitors were chosen. Ash, Misty and Brock took this time to go and talk to Dawn.

I didn't take them long to walk to the waiting room because they managed to get seats close to the backstage area.

%%%%% backstage %%%%%

"Hey Dawn" Ash called out to the blue haired girl.

"Hey guys" she greeted them.

"What you did out there was awesome" Ash complimented her.

"Thanks" she replied.

"I guess that morning training helped, huh?" Misty stated with a smile.

"Yeah, it sure did" Dawn admitted, thankful towards Misty.

"Mmknow, ih whu be rhly hmful if I chuh thah phrly" Maury cut in, fed up with the web on his mouth.

This roughly translated to "you know it would be really helpful if I could talk properly".

"Um, what happened to him?" Brock asked.

"You see, this is what happens if you continue to use bad puns around me" Allegra said with a half warning, half threat tone to her voice.

'A little extreme' the whole group thought in unison.

Allegra then ripped the web off his mouth, using her longer nails as a way to cut through it.

Maury gave a sigh of relief, finally back to the comfort of breathing normally.

"It seems the judges are done choosing" Kai announced to the others.

They all watched the screen eagerly, awaiting the results.

It showed the faces of 8 coordinators one after the other in the following order:  
>Kai, a young girl, a young boy, Allegra, Maury, an older man, Dawn and finally another young girl.<p>

"Well, it looks like we all made it" Maury pointed out.

Dawn was relieved that she made it to the next round, her friends congratulating her on her advance. But she realized that she still had a ways to go before getting the ribbon.

"Good luck Dawn!" Ash said as the group left for their seats so they could get a better view than in the waiting room, the other 20ish competitors left as they didn't advance while some stayed with their friends.

"No need to worry" Dawn replied with full confidence.

The matches were set up in a tournament style with 3 separate rounds which were the first rounds, semifinals and the final round. On the monitor it randomized the pictures of the trainers into matches where they would battle the trainer next to them.

Allegra vs Gabriela

Johnathan vs Travis

Dawn vs Nerissa

Kai vs Maury

"So we're up against each other right off the bat?" Maury noticed.

"Yeah, just so you know I'm not going to go easy on you" Kai warned him.

"I didn't expect you to" Maury shot back.

"I won't have to fight any of you unless I make it to the final round" Allegra pointed out.

A young girl came over to the group and stood in front of Dawn.

"Hello, my name is Nerissa and I'll be your opponent" she extended her arm in a friendly handshake.

"My name is Dawn, nice to meet you" She accepted the handshake.

The other coordinators introduced themselves as well and they all seemed to get along.

"First match begins soon, Allegra vs Gabriela!" Marian announced over the monitor.

Now was when the real competition starts.

**Done and dusted.**

**I apologize for my lapse in uploads for this story, I am trying my best but procrastination got the best of me. Don't worry though, this story is almost over.**

**Next time will be the battles round, so stay tuned!**

**Read, review and leave construction criticism.**

**Until next time.**


	11. Chapter 10: Battle Round

Rise of Darkrai: A Pokéshipping Story

Hello again and welcome to the second part of the Alamos Town Pokémon contest, an arc I hope I'm doing well with and one I would like some more ideas on what to write in the future concerning contests. Anyways, enough of that and let's continue the show!

"Speech"

'Thoughts'

"**Telepathy"**

([Name]'s POV)

"Speech" **(translation)**

%%%%% scene transition %%%%%

**(Disclaimer: I do not own Pokémon or any/all affiliated products or studios. in an alternate universe in which I did, the games wouldn't be as easy as they are in 6****th**** gen).**

**(Important note: This chapter is dedicated to Monty Oum, animater and writer for Rooster Teeth, who passed away 1****st**** of February 2015. I never knew about him until after I started watching RWBY, but that was after his passing and I feel sorry for not knowing him before then. But I am thankful for all the work he has done for Rooster Teeth and hope his memory never dies)**

_R.I.P_

_Monyreak "Monty" Oum_

_June 22__nd__, 1981 to February 1__st__, 2015_

"_Keep Moving Forward"_

Chapter 10: Battle round!

"And now is Time for the first match of the battle rounds, if you didn't know already the battle round consists of a normal battle between coordinators but other factors beside the Pokémon's skill in battle…" Marian explained to the anxious crowd.

"These other factors include the way the moves of a Pokémon are used, their appeal towards the judges and their overall aesthetic. In addition to knockout the rounds consist of an equal amount of points for each Trainer, successful moves lower the opponents score while conversely if you miss, points will be taken from you" she told them in detail.

"if you lose all your points, have less points than your opponent by the end of the 5 minute time limit or your Pokémon faints, you will lose the battle and your opponent will move on to the next round" she made the point clear.

"With that out of the way let's move on to our first match, Allegra vs Gabriela!"

At each end of the battlefield stood the coordinators who prepared to face each other in 1-on-1 battle.

One was the red haired Allegra who is no stranger to contests, having competed in the Grand Festival the year prior. The other was Gabriela, a young girl (not much older than Dawn) who wore a yellow bouffant gown that fit her waist-length curly brown hair.

"Good luck" Gabriela told Allegra as she pulled out her Pokéball.

"Same to you" Allegra smiled back, also getting ready.

"Let the battle commence!" Marian announced.

"Give it your best, Infernape!" Allegra called out the fire-fighting type.

"Infern, Infernape!" it bounced on its feet repeatedly, like a boxer.

"Granbull, it's time to shine!" Gabriela released the Fairy Pokémon.

Granbull looked at its opponent with a glare, causing Infernape to lower its stance a little.

'So it has 'Intimidate'… this could be a problem' Allegra thought in concern.

"Hit it with Mach Punch!" she ordered the first move.

Infernape's fist glowed brightly as it moved so fast that to untrained eyes it seemed like teleportation, the fist made contact with Granbull's stomach in a direct hit.

The hit didn't seem to faze Granbull but it did force it a few feet backwards, still on its feet waiting for its trainer's orders. This caused the points on its trainer to fall by a small percentage, barely 2 percent of the total points.

"Jump and use Hidden power!" Gabriela commanded.

And so Granbull engulfed itself in a blue light, forming an aura of sorts that pulsated around it. It jumped in the air and took aim at Infernape, firing a blue wave of energy at the fire type.

The wave pelted Infernape and unlike the Mach Punch this attack seemed to do more damage, this caused the points for Allegra to fall a bit more than Gabriela's.

'That hidden power is probably a psychic type move, better watch out for that' Allegra noted.

"Hit it harder, Power Up Punch!" Allegra told the fire ape.

Like before the fire type's fist glowed, this time with a red glow. The move was executed slower than the Mach Punch but the fire type used its superior speed to close the distance between the two.

"Use Reflect!" Gabriela countered.

At the last second a light wall of blue stopped the fist in its tracks, more points were taken from Allegra that dropped her below the 90 percent mark.

"Then I guess we'll turn up the heat, Fire Spin!" Allegra said in determination.

A spiralling flame erupted from the ground around the Granbull, each ember leaving a small burn mark on the Fairy Pokémon's skin. This caused Gabriela's points to drop below the 90 percent mark as well.

Granbull seemed to be annoyed by the wall of fire but seemed relatively composed about it, like it had no effect.

'It seems like she's switching onto ranged attacks, time to go on the offensive' Gabriela analysed and decided accordingly.

"Use Thunder Fang and break through the flames!" she ordered.

Fangs of electricity formed around the Granbull's impressive teeth, it jumped forward and chewed through the Fire Spin. This dropped Allegra's points some more.

It began to charge and pounced at the fighting ape, clamping onto its arm with a steely grip.

The meter on Allegra's points dropped even further.

"Infer!" the fire type winced.

"Blaze Kick it into the air!" Allegra commanded.

The feet of Infernape became engulfed in a blaze that would easily sear any uncooked meat nearby, with both feet it spring boarded the Granbull and broke through the Reflect and in turn hitting it square in the chest, propelling it into the air above the stadium.

"Now use Fire Blast!"

In quick concession Infernape opened its mouth to release a large flame that took the shape of a star that looked similar to the Kanji symbol 'Ho'. The blast made its way to the airborne Pokémon.

"Retaliate with hidden power!" Gabriela thought quickly.

Releasing a blue wave, Granbull created a power struggle between the Hidden Power and Fire Blast. The resulting clAsh created a spectacular display of blue and orange that flAshed and lit up the stadium like a miniature supernova.

Allegra grinned a little while Gabriela cocked an eyebrow at that.

"Use Sunny Day!" Allegra said with a confident tone.

'Oh no' Gabriela realised what was going to happen.

"Get out of there!" she warned her Pokémon.

Unfortunately for her the order came too late, Infernape had already created a second sun and boosted its Fire Blast's power allowing it to push the Hidden Power back into Granbull with full force. The explosion of light was blinding but was a beautiful sight to behold, colour and light becoming one and expanding outwards in an irregular sphere, Granbull fell from the smoke cloud that was left behind and landed on the ground.

This combination of moves caused Gabriela's points to drop very quickly down below 30 percent, Granbull was also starting to sport some burns and bruises as it finally started getting affected by the fire type attacks.

'Not good, if I don't think of something quick I'm done for' Gabriela worried, brainstorming ideas.

"Mach Punch!" Allegra ordered again.

'There we go!' a lightbulb sparked in Gabriela's head.

"Take the hit as best you can!" she commanded.

"Gran?" the Pokémon wondered but decided to follow through anyway.

The hit was like last time, but Granbull managed to stay in place thanks to its grip on Infernape's arm.

"Thunder fang again, then Play Rough!" Gabriel continued her assault.

A Thunder Fang scored a direct hit on Infernape's midsection and prepared a glowing pink volley of fists.

"Dodge it!" Allegra told Infernape.

Infernape tried but was stopped still, a charge of electricity pulsing through it and tensing all its muscles. It was paralysed.

'Crap!' Allegra was shocked.

The fists of Granbull worked into Infernape like a seasoned boxer, jabbing into the ribs of Infernape and pummelling its stomach with a barrage of heavy hits. Each hit seemed to do a lot of damage as Infernape was helpless to defend itself.

"Hang in there!" Allegra encouraged Infernape, worrying for its wellbeing.

As Granbull finished its combination of hits it stepped back from Infernape.

Allegra's meter was well below 20 percent, closer to 10 percent than one would be comfortable with. Infernape was clutching its midsection and hunched over, it was not in good shape. The timer reached the one minute countdown.

'Come on… come on…' Allegra waited impatiently, hoping for a certain event to happen before it was too late.

"Use Crunch!" Gabriela ordered with an air of finality.

The Fangs of Granbull gained a dark and shadowy look as it opened its mouth to finish off Infernape. It bit down with its jaws… but there was no crunching sound.

"What!" Gabriela exclaimed in disbelief.

"Thank you for staying in there, so let's finish this with Blast Burn!" Allegra smiled in relief to Infernape and gave a mighty roar of a command.

Infernape was glowing red hot, the fire on its head was burning so brightly it turned the air an orange colour and the Pokémon was holding Granbull's mouth open with its bare hands. This was the immense power of its Ability 'Blaze'.

Granbull looked into Infernape's eyes with fear, a fear of defeat. Infernape just smirked as it caused the ground to erupt around them in rising waves of hot fire, just about incinerating every dust particle within the radius. The smoke cloud was enormous and covered the whole arena.

As it dissipated it was clear who the winner was… Granbull was lying on the ground covered in burn patches and swirled out eyes while Infernape was panting but still standing. The points on Gabriela's meter reached zero.

"And the winners of this match are Allegra and Infernape!" Marian declared the winner.

Allegra sighed in relief and quickly ran to Infernape to help it stand, and she took one of its arms and used her shoulder as a support.

"You did great out there, we'll get you fixed up soon" she smiled kindly to her starter as she patted its shoulder.

"Infer…" the fire type said in pride, patting her back as it allowed itself to be returned to the Pokéball.

"You did well Granbull" Gabriela said slightly sadly, but she smiled nonetheless at its efforts.

She then walked over to Allegra and offered her a handshake, Allegra accepted as they parted ways.

"Good luck in your next contest" Allegra said to Gabriela.

"And to you too" the Brunette replied.

They both left the stage.

"That was an intense battle" Ash marvelled.

"Allegra is a very commendable battler and woman" Brock spoke, still a little love sick.

Misty suppressed a groan, "yeah, but Gabriela isn't a pushover in any case" she pointed out.

"I am confused about one thing though" Ash said.

"What's that?" Misty wondered.

"Why didn't Infernape's attacks hurt the Granbull as much as they should have, Granbull is a normal type isn't it?" Ash asked.

This question managed to make the group pause in thought.

"You're right, Infernape should have had the clear advantage but its fire and fighting moves hardly seemed to have any effect… very strange" Brock realised.

"I've never heard of the attack 'Play Rough' either" Misty added.

"Well, there has been rumours of research going around that involves certain Pokémon showing different attributes compared to others of their species, most of this taking place in the Kalos region, some say it might be a new typing of Pokémon. It is a very interesting topic, but I won't be able to get too much information as it's mostly speculation at this point" Tonio gave a hypothesis, disappointed at his lack of understanding.

"But still, a new typing of Pokémon… I wonder how this will affect the nature of Pokémon battles, giving an edge to those who know more about it" Alice pondered.

"We should save this discussion for another time, it is a contest after all" Brock decided to stop the conversation.

A collective nod sealed the deal.

%%%%% backstage %%%%%

"Looks like we're up next" Travis said to Johnathan.

"Yup, let's give the crowd a battle that will top the last one" Johnathan spoke with an enthusiastic tone.

"Agreed" Travis replied.

They walked out to the stage for their battle and passed by Allegra who was returning to heal her Infernape.

Allegra sat down on a couch and released Infernape, the Pokémon was covered in bruises and bite marks with a particularly blueish area around the chest.

"Jeez, that LOOKS painful but I can't imagine how it feels" Allegra cringed slightly at the wounds.

"Infern…" the fire type shook its hand in a 'so-so' gesture, putting up a front that it doesn't hurt much.

"Whatever you say, just hold still for a sec" Allegra chuckled a bit while pulling out some potion.

She sprayed the purple liquid onto the injuries in a spread out fAshion and not concentrated in one area. Infernape winced a bit at the sudden sensation of pain, the potion worked like a disinfectant and stung when applied to wounded skin. After a few seconds the potion took effect and slowly started healing the wounds.

"Just rest for a bit, it will be a bit until the next round so you can take it easy" Allegra instructed.

A sound of chatter from Infernape gave indication that it would do as it was told.

"Ok, Infernape return" a red light enveloped Infernape and returned it to the Pokéball.

'that was far too close a match for my liking, that Granbull was far too resistant… oh well, I'll just watch these two battle so I can plan ahead' Allegra decided as she stared at the monitor.

The match had just started and it was a match between Johnathan's Porygon-Z and Travis' Snover, power-wise the battle was one-sided in favour of Porygon-Z but Snover had a good combination of moves that would allow it to drop Johnathan's points down to a low point. In the end the battle ended in a timeout, Travis barely winning by one percent in points.

The crowd loved the battle and managed to stay interested despite the previous match.

'Sorry Travis, but this is going to be too easy' Allegra thought confidently.

The massive type advantage and overall performing abilities of Infernape overshadowed Snover's abilities. She wasn't being mean but she knew a one-sided battle when she saw one and no amount of trickery was going to let him win, because she was getting serious.

Dawn was sitting down as she waited for her turn, and in the meantime she managed to talk with Nerissa a bit before the battle. She was a trainer from Jubilife City and she had won four ribbons already and she was battling for her final ribbon, she had a head start on Dawn by about 9 months and seemed very competent when it came to the art of coordinating.

"The next match will be between Dawn and Nerissa and will start in two minutes" Marian announced.

"I hope you have fun out there, I certainly know I am going to" Nerissa told Dawn.

"I will, no need to worry" Dawn spoke cheerfully.

They both stood up and in that moment Dawn managed to get a good look at Nerissa's outfit. She was wearing a diamond blue Kimono decorated in scattered pink petals, her belt was pure white and on her feet she wore sandals. In her jet black hair she wore twin Japanese style hair sticks that supported a very neat bun, and her eyes were a shiny emerald green.

The both of them made their way to the stage and prepared to battle.

%%%%% on stage %%%%%

"There she is!" Ash pointed out enthusiastically, Pikachu was just as excited.

"Good luck Dawn!" Misty called out even though she was certain she couldn't hear her.

She had let her Azurill out to watch the contest with her, wanting him to enjoy the show as well.

Brock, Alice and Tonio cheered her on as well, anxious for the battle to begin.

"And now for the third battle of the Alamos Town Pokémon contest, Dawn vs Nerissa!" the bubbly announcer started the match.

"Piplup, spotlight!" Dawn released her starter Pokémon to a blue bubble seal that swirled around before dissipating.

"Let's enjoy ourselves, Bronzor!" the black haired girl called her dual-typed Pokémon with a seal of music, creating a nice melody as it was released.

Both entrances created a positive reaction from the crowd as they both stared each other down.

"Piplup use Bubble Beam!" Dawn made the first move.

"Pip… luplupluplup!" the penguin Pokémon puffed its chest and shot a torrent of bubbles at the Steel type.

"Bronzor use Gyro Ball to block it" Nerissa commanded.

"Bron…" it began rotating quickly in the air, not moving as it braced for the water attack.

The Bubble Beam hit Bronzor but bounced off harmlessly, some of the bubbles began to orbit the Bronze Pokémon like satellites. The failed attack caused Dawn to lose the first points of the match, a 3 percent drop.

"Now use Safeguard" said Nerissa.

The Bronze Pokémon stopped rotating on command and created a sphere of green light to surround it, causing the bubbles to break and the droplets to glow in the Safeguard. A collective 'ooh' from the crowd showed they were impressed, and another drop in points for Dawn who was down to 90 percent.

'Not a great start, but there is still more to come' Dawn encouraged herself.

'That's it!' she realised.

"Use Whirlpool!"

Piplup created a swirling vortex of rushing water from its mouth and launched it at the Bronzor, hoping to do damage this time.

"Block with Gyro Ball again!" Nerissa repeated.

Gyro Ball did manage to block it by causing the water to swirl around Bronzors body in a spherical shape, more points lost for Dawn who was at 87 percent now while Nerissa hasn't lost any.

"Use Peck!" Dawn said suddenly.

Piplup's beak grew bigger and sharper as it entered a sprint towards Bronzor.

"Use confusion to speed up the water!" Nerissa thought quickly.

"Hit it from below!" Dawn retaliated.

As told, the Bronzor sped the water's movement up via its psychic powers, soon the water was spinning fast enough to make the water look like a miniature planet that would feel like it would rip skin if you touched it. Piplup follow his orders and hit the ball square in the bottom and it felt like concrete as Piplup forced it into the air.

The water ball was now levitating above the stage, this attack cause Nerissa to lose her first points to 94 percent.

"Destroy the water with Psywave!" Nerissa decided.

The water radiated a bright pink colour before exploding into drizzle, 81 percent for Dawn.

'This thing's defence is too strong!' Dawn was annoyed and concerned.

"Extrasensory!" Nerissa's voice pulled her out of her thoughts.

"Dodge it!" Dawn warned Piplup.

Piplup nimbly dodged the multi-coloured ray of psychic energy, also causing Nerissa to drop to below 80 percent.

"Use it again!" Nerissa told bronzor again.

Another beam was fired at Piplup as it kept dodging, the attacks getting closer and closer to him with each passing second. Dawn used this time to analyse Nerissa's battle style, doing so made her realise a few flaws in the way she battled. Doing so managed to lower Nerissa's points to below 70 through just dodging.

Dawn wanted to test a theory first.

"Use Bubble Beam!" Dawn Asked Piplup.

Piplup once again fired the stream at Bronzor, and Nerissa once again used Gyro Ball to block it.

It was in that moment Dawn realised what these flaws were. For one, Nerissa used a very predictable battle style which allowed for better counter strategies. She also seemed to lack a variety of offensive moves which seemed to relate to Bronzor's lack of strength, making up for it in defence. And lastly she seemed very stubborn in attacks and would not stop unless you forced her, making for an easy way to drain points.

For the next 30 seconds Dawn continued to bait Nerissa into attacking and missing, dropping Nerissa's points to below 60. The black haired girl was beginning to get annoyed of not hitting the water type.

"Use Metal Sound!" Nerissa commanded with an irritated voice.

Bronzor started to make a very loud and high pitched scraping and grating sound that resonated throughout the arena, the noise caused Piplup to freeze in reaction to the sudden ear destroying screech and cover its ears and closing its eyes.

"No, Piplup!" Dawn exclaimed in surprise.

"Future Sight and then hit it with Gyro Ball" Nerissa shot off with quick execution.

The Bronze Pokémon covered Piplup with strange mystic energy and then struck the water type with full force spinning, knocking Piplup back a few metres.

'I guess I really tried her patience' Dawn thought sheepishly, the change in attack pattern must have been due to her constant dodging.

"Piplup use…" Dawn began but was cut off by a blue flAsh of energy striking Piplup like a bolt of lightning.

Dawn gasped in realisation, forgetting about future sight.

The meter that showed Dawn's points was lower than Nerissa's after that consecutive combo of attacks. Both of them were around the 50 marker and the performance had only a minute and a half left.

'That future sight is strong, better avoid that as best we can' Dawn noted.

"Trick Room" Nerissa said calmly.

'Trick Room?' Dawn echoed in confusion, she had never heard of the move Trick Room before.

A large transparent pale blue box appeared around the edges of the battlefield, glowing for a few seconds and disappearing soon afterwards. The display caused a drop in Dawn's points to the mid 40's.

Dawn shook her confusion off as she ordered the next attack, "Bubble Beam".

"Psybeam!" Nerissa countered almost instantly.

Piplup began charging its attack by puffing its chest, just as it was about to release the attack a sudden burst of air distracted him.

'What?!" Dawn was shocked.

Bronzor had closed the distance between the two in less than a second, like lightning. This made little sense to Dawn as she saw that Bronzor was slower than Piplup, the nature of Trick Room still unknown to her.

A burst of pink and blue coloured psychic energy blasted the water type in the chest, causing it to cancel the Bubble Beam. The attack sent Piplup flying back towards Dawn, Piplup managed to regain composure mid-air.

"Spin and use peck!" Dawn said in combination.

Piplup dive-bombed toward bronzor like a bullet from a gun, the spin was more for style than stability though.

"gyro Ball!" Nerissa commanded.

Again Bronzor managed to get to the side of Piplup and tackle him with a strong spinning tackle, knocking Piplup into the ground.

It was then that Dawn realised the way Trick Room worked, making the slower Pokémon attack quicker was very useful for a Pokémon like Bronzor who lacked the speed to rival Piplup.

Another realisation also popped into her head, a way to counteract the Trick Room.

And so she waited for a good ten seconds, not ordering any attacks.

As a result Nerissa became impatient and ordered her attack.

"Psybeam!"

"Bide!" Dawn spoke as the beam made its way to Piplup.

"Pip…!" the water type grunted as the attack hit him full force, outlining him in a glow of white energy.

A sharp drop in points for Dawn caused her to drop below 30, bide was a pretty risky move to use during contests because it involved taking hits and could cost you a victory.

"Future Sight then Gyro Ball into a Feint Attack, finish it quickly!" Nerissa panicked a little but clearly explained her consecutive attack order.

Piplup was once again covered in blue mystic power, then hit hard by a fast-paced spinning attack and then disappeared. The water type was hanging in and started looking for the steel type, a heavy and blunt hit from behind knocked him forward and stunned him a bit.

The combination of moves drops Dawns points to 15 percent, Piplup was in no better condition as he struggled to stay up. Another hit or miss could tip the victory in Nerissa's favour.

Piplup couldn't hold its power back any more and released a strong beam of light that sped towards Bronzor, as the attack was moving the Trick Room flickered back into view and then dissipated.

"Dodge and use Gyro Ball!" Nerissa called at the last moment.

Bronzor attempted to do so but couldn't dodge fast enough, the Trick Room had disappeared and Bronzor went back to its original speed. The Bide had hit Bronzor with enough strength to throw it across the field and into the ground, it faintly levitated back up with scratched all over its body and one eye closed in pain.

Nerissa had lost enough points to fall to 5 percent of her original score, very bad for her indeed.

Unfortunately for her a buzzing sound rang through the air, signifying the end of the battle through timeout.

"And the winners are…" Marian began to announce when a bolt of psychic power bombarded Piplup.

Future Sight had just hit after the battle was over, and Piplup was unconscious.

"Piplup!" Dawn called out in worry, running to his side and picking him up gently.

"Piiip luuup…" he groaned in discomfort.

The crowd was shocked by this, to say the least.

Marian stopped talking for a few seconds before the awkwardness set in, "The winners of this match are Dawn and Piplup".

Nerissa walked up to Dawn with a smile on her face, she had just returned bronzor to its ball.

"That was a close match, had it been a few seconds longer I might have won" Nerissa grinned.

"I'm sure you would have too" Dawn replied with a sheepish laugh.

"Oh well, bad luck I suppose." Nerissa shrugged, "you do your best in the next match, okay?"

"Definitely" Dawn said with full confidence.

And with that they both walked off stage, wishing each other luck.

"That was a close one" Ash breathed in relief.

"Pika" Pikachu agreed.

"That Trick Room did some nasty work against Dawn's performance but she pulled through in the end" Misty was happy for the young coordinator.

"It's a good thing that contests have a time limit, or else Piplup would have lost from that Future Sight" Brock pointed out.

"Very lucky indeed" Tonio agreed.

"At least she gets to move to the second round" Alice spoke.

That was something they all agreed on as they awaited the anticipated battle between Maury and Kai, which was arguably the biggest match of the first round.

%%%%% Backstage %%%%%

"Here you go, this should make you feel good as new soon" Dawn spoke kindly as she used her potion to treat Piplup's injuries.

Piplup muttered its name a bit as it regained consciousness. He was already feeling the effects of the medicine.

"I'm sorry I had to put you through that, it was pretty risky using bide like that" Dawn apologised.

"Piplup **(nonsense)**" the penguin Pokémon shook its head in denial, it seemed content with winning.

She just smiled a little at her starter.

"I guess you're right, no need to dwell on the past because we should be looking forward to our next match" she brightened up.

"This isn't going to be like last time, I'm gonna beat you in this match and win the ribbon" Maury spoke in a friendly competitive voice.

"If you say so, just put up a good fight okay?" Kai said confidently.

"Damn right I'm going to" Maury smirked.

"Big words but I'll believe it when I see it" Allegra made a snarky comment.

The call had come for Maury and Kai to go on stage and do battle.

They looked at each other and grinned.

"See you on the battlefield" Kai said to Maury.

Maury chuckled, he was excited for this matchup as he Walked to the stage with Kai.

"I see Piplup is doing well" Allegra noted as she walked over to Dawn and her starter.

"Yeah, he'll be fine in no time" Dawn smiled confidently, "by the way, how's Infernape doing?" she asked.

"He did take a fair bit of damage but he's tough, he'll be ready for the next match" Allegra said without a hint of worry.

Piplup sat up and puffed up its chest proudly, putting up a tough act. Allegra crouched down to meet Piplup in the eyes with a smile on her face.

She poked him in the chest and caused him to fall into a sitting position and he wasn't impressed, so he responded with a pout.

Allegra was slightly amused at his expression.

"You know Piplup are proud creatures and are hard to bond with, but he seems to really like you. I think you two make a good team, in my opinion" Allegra spoke with a tone of nostalgia.

"I think you and Infernape make a great team too" Dawn responded.

"Thanks" Allegra accepted.

A second passed.

"What's the story between Maury and Kai?" Dawn asked, "Is this going to be a rematch of sorts for them?" she added.

"That would be an appropriate way to describe it. Because Maury has a very competitive personality he constantly makes rivals wherever he goes, Kai being one of them. The last contest we participated in, the Wisteria city contest, ended up with Kai and Maury battling it out in the finals, Kai won and Maury has been training hard to beat him" Allegra explained.

"Who do you think's going to win?" Dawn wondered.

"I'm undecided at the moment, they have both been practicing hard but only time will tell" Allegra said honestly.

"Piplup" the penguin pointed at Kai on the monitor.

"I guess you want Kai to win so you can battle Empoleon again" Dawn speculated.

Piplup nodded fiercely.

Dawn smiled at her partner's determination.

The match between Maury and Kai was about to begin, Allegra and Piplup were watching eagerly and Dawn joined in.

%%%%% On Stage %%%%%

"Now is the time for the final match of the quarterfinals, Maury vs Kai!" Marian announced energetically.

Facing each other at opposite ends of the stage, Maury and Kai eyed each other.

"You ready?" Kai asked with a grin, knowing the answer.

Maury nodded confidently.

They both released their Pokémon.

"Go, Torterra!" Maury cried.

"Empoleon, let's go!" Kai released his Pokémon.

The large Grass/Ground type Torterra was released to a spiral of green leaves that circled and dissipated around it.

The Water/Steel type was released with the same seal it had for the appeals round.

"Why is Kai using Empoleon again?" Ash wondered.

"According to the rules you are actually allowed to use the same Pokémon in both the Appeals and Battle rounds, but you can't change Pokémon you have already selected for the battle round" Brock explained.

"Although using the same Pokémon for the Battle rounds as the Appeals round puts you at a disadvantage" Misty pointed out.

"Yeah, like the others knowing some of the attacks your Pokémon can use and what type of Pokémon to use against it" Ash agreed.

"Maybe he has a specific reason he wants to use Empoleon?" Misty guessed.

'He definitely is better at analysing, that's for sure' she was slightly impressed with his analysis.

On the stage, both Pokémon were ready for battle.

"Empoleon, use Ice Beam!" Kai ordered right off the bat.

The icy blast was fired close to the ground and caused a trail of frozen crystals to form as it sped towards the Continent Pokémon.

"Block it with Stone Edge!" Maury spoke hastily.

The grass starter used parts of the ground to make solid rock. The stones levitated around it and flew towards the Ice Type attack.

The stones froze on contact, lumping together and creating a large chunk of ice and stones in the middle of the field. Kai lost the first points, dropping to 95 percent.

"Alright, go for Steel Wing!" Kai ordered, choosing a more physical approach.

Empoleon coated its wings in a strong glow as it charged quickly at the Grass type.

"use Rock Climb to stop it!" Maury retaliated.

Torterra's claws on its feet elongated in a glow as it stood up on its hind legs. It came smAshing down as the ground in front of it started to rise into unstable rocky platforms.

The Rock Climb had caught Empoleon and stopped its advance as it regained its footing on the high platform above the stage. This cost Kai a few points, going down to 90.

Torterra then began its offensive as it used a surprising amount of speed to scale the terrain and go for a tackle on the Water Type.

"Use its back to jump in the air!" Kai thought quickly.

Empoleon jumped as well as it could and landed on top of Torterra and prepared to jump. Maury lost his first points, going down to 94.

"Use Grass Knot and throw it into the ground!" Maury grinned.

Torterra's eyes glowed green as it used the tree on its back to create some vines to wrap around Empoleon's feet. Once it got hold of the Water type it pulled it down with strong force and sent it spiralling towards the ground.

This dropped Kai's points to the mid-80's.

"Now use Body Slam!" Maury ordered.

Torterra then followed after Empoleon, catching up with its mass helping it fall faster.

"Quick, use Hydro Pump to push yourself upwards!" Kai spoke quickly.

Empoleon heard the order and shook its head to focus. Its mouth opened as it released a high pressure blast of water that forced it back toward the falling Continent Pokémon.

"Use Drill Peck!" Kai continued.

The trident crown of Empoleon's head began shining a brilliant yellow as the Pokémon started spinning like a big screwdriver as it closed in on the larger Pokémon.

The two collided in mid-air, for a few seconds they remained stationary as the forces equalised. Empoleon used the power from its attack to push itself out of the way of the falling Grass Tortoise while Torterra continued to fall and land on its feet, causing the ground to shake.

Empoleon landed smoothly and awaited Kai's next move.

Maury's points dropped to the high 70's.

Torterra had sustained a heavy hit from the Drill Peck but was relatively healthy, Empoleon had taken a decent amount of damage from the Grass Knot and was slightly more injured than Torterra.

"Empoleon, use Mist!" Kai instructed.

Empoleon opened its mouth and breathed out a thick cloud of water vapour that covered the whole field, the Mist made it almost impossible to see Empoleon bar the large silhouette it made.

The display caused Maury's points to drop to the lower 70's.

"Torterra, stay focused and use Seed Bomb where you think it is!" Maury spoke over the mist.

The Continent Pokémon listened and began to scan for any signs of movement, every few seconds a rushing sound was made as Empoleon made passes by the larger Pokémon.

Predicting where Empoleon was going to go next and released a volley of energy pellets. An explosion was heard as the mist disappeared in the shockwave.

Empoleon was on the ground and was getting back up but it was hurting, Kai's points dropped considerably into the 50's.

Kai frowned in disappointment.

'Damn, thought that would have worked better' Kai sighed inwardly.

A sudden realisation made Kai smirk.

"Empoleon, freeze the ground with Ice Beam!" Kai called out.

The Emperor Pokémon used the attack to turn the floor of the battle field into a smooth and thick layer of ice. Torterra was surprised at the sudden change in temperature and lack of friction on the slippery surface.

Maury's point dropped further into the 40's.

"Use Earthquake!" Maury ordered Torterra.

Torterra tried to stand up but the ice cause the Pokémon to slip backwards and unable to perform the attack.

Another decrease in points pushed Maury into the late 30's.

'Alright, this is definitely a problem' Maury bit his lip.

"Now use Hydro Pump!" Kai continued his assault.

The high pressure blast of water darted towards Torterra and hit it hard, the Grass Type was looking bad now.

"Use Stone Edge to break the Ice, quickly!" Maury ordered desperately.

Torterra tried, but it couldn't use any of the ground to make stone as it was covered in ice.

"Finish it with an Ice Beam!" Kai said confidently.

"Don't give up yet, use Frenzy Plant!" Maury spoke with determination.

Torterra used large vines on its back to pierce through the ice and into the ground while Empoleon fired the Ice Beam at Torterra.

The Frenzy Plant tore up the icy field and began to block the oncoming attack. The two attacks persisted as they continued in a battle of dominance.

"Give it all you got Torterra!" Maury cried.

"Just hang in there, Empoleon!" Kai encouraged his Pokémon.

The attacks had a sudden burst in power and then they petered out, the Frenzy Plant created a wall of vines that were frozen over by Ice Beam. The wall also obscured Maury's line of sight of Kai. Both Kai and Maury's points dropped, to 30 and 20 respectively.

Torterra was exhausted and couldn't move, needing to regain its energy from the attack.

"Use Metal Claw to tear through it!" Kai roared.

Not even a second afterwards Empoleon tore through the wall like it was tissue paper, his steely wings acting like a sword and shattering the frozen wall into pieces. Maury's points dropped to 15 percent.

Maury flinched when he heard the words come out of his mouth. He was going into a full panic as he couldn't stop Empoleons next attack.

"Torterra, no!" He cried out.

"Hyrdo Cannon!" Kai simply ordered.

Empoleon summoned a large ball of light in front of it, the light turned into a dense sphere of water that was sucking in wind from the energy needed to make it. Empoleon threw the attack with a considerable amount of force toward the Continent Pokémon.

Torterra brace for impact with as much energy it could muster as the Hydro Cannon pelted it in the face. The strength of the attack forced Torterra back around 10 metres as a small fog covered the floor of the attack area.

Maury and Kai waited in anticipation.

Torterra was standing up but after a few seconds it became dizzy and dropped to the floor on its belly, completely exhausted with swirled eyes.

Torterra fainted as Maury's points hit zero, a beep from the sound system and a loud roar from the crowd signified the end of the match.

"The winners of this match are Kai and Empoleon, and that marks the end of the first round!" Marian spoke excitedly.

"Next up is the Semi-Finals!" she continued.

Maury sighed in defeat as he returned Torterra.

"You did good buddy, we'll get him next time" he promised.

"Nice work Maury, you definitely improved over last time" Kai complimented his opponent.

"Improvement doesn't mean anything if I lose. so the next time we meet on the contest field… I'll win" Maury spoke passionately with a fire in his eyes.

Kai chuckled in amusement, he saw the potential that Maury had and he wanted him to become stronger as well.

"Anyway, be sure to beat Allegra for me" Maury grinned.

"I'll do my best" Kai couldn't help but grin too.

They had a friendly handshake and left for the backstage.

%%%%% backstage %%%%%

Piplup was thrilled that Kai had won, although he was more excited that he had a chance at fighting Empoleon again.

"Looks like you're happy" Dawn stated.

"Piplup!" he nodded.

Dawn smiled at his enthusiasm. She looked over to see Kai and Maury returning backstage, unlike other coordinators Maury decided to stay and watch the rest of the contest.

"You both did a great job out there" Dawn praised them.

"Thanks, I still lost though" Maury half-heartedly answered.

"Like I said earlier, you'll have plenty of chances to get more ribbons… so quit moping around and enjoy the show" Allegra said sincerely.

Maury chuckled, "I'm not moping" he grinned.

"Could have fooled me" she replied with a grin of her own.

"Just so you know, Maury told me to beat you in the contest" Kai butted in.

"Of course he did" Allegra mumbled under her breath.

She looked up with a determined face, "well, I don't plan on losing" she stated like it was a fact.

"I don't think anyone here plans on losing" Dawn deadpanned.

Allegra faulted a bit, "can't you let me have this moment?" she complained.

"She makes a good point though, none of us want to lose" Kai agreed with Dawn.

"But didn't it sound at least a bit cool?" Allegra asked.

"It was more cliché than cool" Kai spoke truthfully.

Allegra pouted at the revelation.

Dawn had a small sheepish laugh, feeling a little bad about ruining her moment. She also picked up on something that Maury said.

"Hey, I think your forgetting that I'm facing Kai next so I might be the one battling Allegra" Dawn spoke disapprovingly, she didn't like being underestimated.

He seemed embarrassed at the impression he gave her.

"S-sorry… I, uh…" he sputtered trying to find a way to make the situation less awkward, his face was beet red.

Kai and Allegra chuckled at his expense.

Dawn just giggled a little, "I'm sure it was just a mistake, no need to worry about it, ok?" she comforted him.

"I'm usually used to just the three of us talking, I didn't mean to offend you" He spoke honestly, referring to Allegra and Kai.

Dawn smiled in understanding.

The monitor came back on showing Marian ready to announce the beginning of the second round, this caught everyone's attention.

"The second round is about to start, the first match will be Allegra against Travis!" Marian announced to the cheer of the crowd.

The crowd was excited to see the battle between the two, especially those who felt that Travis was the underdog with his previous victory.

"i guess it's time for my next match" Allegra noted seriously.

She stood up and checked her Pokéball, making last second checks to see if Infernape was ready.

"Good luck out there" Dawn cheered her on.

"Win one for us, so I can see you get beat in the final round" Maury gave his sharp support.

"Thanks for your kind words" Allegra sarcastically remarked.

Kai gave a nod of approval.

She walked off to the stage.

'I am going to win this, just you wait Maury' she thought with a strong resolve, wanting to prove Maury wrong.

She used this willpower to spur her on as she continued the long walk down the hallway to her next performance.

**That's a wrap, phew!**

**Another chapter done within a month, I'm getting better. The next update for a story will be my walking dead one so you guys will have to wait a bit for the next chapter.**

**As always please give me constructive criticism when needed and don't forget to review.**

**Until next time.**


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